We The Bloody Ones
by Civillain
Summary: [SYOT 22/24] "As a reminder to those who Rebelled, who without mercy lead their own to needless slaughter, on this third Quater Quell games, the male and female Tributes are to be reaped by the existing District Victors." In a twist of Capitol authority, Plutarch Heavensbee is found deceased shortly after Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark's victory tour. The consequences are grim.
1. Introduction and Character List

"It was written in the charter of the games, that every twenty-five years, that there would be a Quarter Quell. To keep fresh, for each new generation, the memory of those who died and the uprising against the Capitol. Each Quater Quell, will be distinguished by games of a special significance.

And now on this day, the 75th anniversary of our defeat of the Rebellion, we celebrate the third Quater Quell.

As a reminder to those who Rebelled, who without mercy, lead their own to needless slaughter, on this third Quater Quell games, the male and female tributes are to be reaped by the existing District victors."

* * *

 _In a twist of Capitol bureaucracy, Plutarch Heavensbee is found deceased shortly after Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark's victory tour. Wherever an unfortunate accident, or a cloak and dagger manoeuvre ―― it ultimately matters little, for the 75th Annual Hunger Games will go on as planned, and this time, the Districts will be brought back into submission._

 _For while President Snow insists that fear does not work so long as the people have hope, newly instated Head Gamemaker, Citro Kostas, respectfully disagrees. Hope is well and good, but even such steadfast faith cannot survive when the people fear the one person they previously thought their saviour._

 _The people look to the Mockingjay as a symbol. As their chance for rebellion. Well, Gamemaker Kostas intends to bring Katniss Everdeen back in line. In fact, he intends to bring_ all _the Victors back in line. For when the Games are announced, it will not be the Capitol that decides; it will be them. The Mockingjay, along with the twenty-three other mentors, will choose this year's tributes. They will take someone's son and daughter, and only one of them will come back. There will be no indiscrimination. No unpredictability._

 _It will be them. Those the people valued too highly. It will be them who make the decision of who lives and who dies._

 _So, let the 75th Annual Hunger Games begin!_

 **[SYOT INFOMATION]**

So, if you fine folks haven't been able to guess already; this is a _Submit Your Own Tribute_ fic. It's a little summer task for me, personally, to keep myself busy and my literacy skills honed, but it also gives me a chance to get a feel of how each of the main cannon characters might react to a more 'routine' Hunger Games setting in the midst of Panem-wide defiance; such as for instance, how Katniss and Peeta might cope as new mentors, how other mentors might tolerate the two Star-Crossed Lovers impeding on their own tribute's chances of winning ―― how the people themselves might take seeing their Mockingjay having a hand in the reaping of a tribute, etc, etc. I had this idea about a year ago, but have only just got around to actually implementing it.

In a way, this will be a cross between a 'traditional' THG AU and an SYOT Arena story. The user-submitted tributes will feature, the mentors and victors will feature, the main antagonists will feature, and so forth.

But for now: The unfamiliar faces.

As the AU 75th's Games will have Previous Victor/Mentor submitted tributes the Reaping will not be quite the same ―― however, there will be the same number of tributes in total. I like to think of it as the Capitol shoving the seemingly-ordinary in the faces of the Districts, like, y'know, "no matter what you do the Hunger Games will still happen," or something. That means twelve girls and twelve boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen.

There will be no volunteering on Reaping day ―― however, if you wish for your character to approach a mentor/former victor and demand them to put their name forward before the Reaping, that will be allowed. Absolutely.

Now, as for how the 'Games' itself with be planned out: **It will be random.**

Once I have all the names, I will put them through a Hunger Games Generator. Said generator can be found online at brantsteele's website, and the only manipulation of said generation will be the occasional editing to ensure a smooth story flow. I will not change any deaths from how they are previously generated. That is my one rule. This rule means that I am impartial and unbiased when it comes to characters, and gives me a definite "plan" of wich I cannot stray from.

I have prepared a character sheet for people to use, which can be found here and on my own biography, so people can copy and paste it at their own leisure.

Since I do not have my own tribute character, I can't fill one out as an example, but I have annotated [in brackets] as much as possible to help anyone who may be struggling. If you wish, you may PM me if you need any advice, more information, or if you have any questions. I ask that you don't do this in reviews, because it makes it difficult for me to keep track of actual _story_ reviews if it is filled with questions and character information. The character sheet itself is quite large, and while people can delete any parts of it, leave parts blank, it will be far, far too large to put in a review by itself ―― so please PM me and I will respond as quickly as I am able.

The character sheet will be below.

Each tribute will be mentored by one of the former victors, as is standard. However since some districts actually do not have _named_ cannon victors, I will also be inserting Mentor OCs for constructive purposes, which can be identified by an *asterisk*.

If you are submitting a character for Districts **5** , **6** , **9** and **10** , please **PM** me and I will give a personality and/or physical description of the OC mentor(s), so you can set out your character's relationships with them accordingly.

This fic is a **First Come, First Served** basis, but I will put some places on reserve if people need additional time, providing they have a concrete idea for their character, such as a name, etc.

Once all the OTs (OCs?) have been submitted, and I have time, I will compress all the info and create some kind of description and post it here, so y'all can snoop on their backstories and get a feel for each tribute. This might happen after we're a few chapters in, particularly if it takes me time to get a good grip on a certain character, but it will be done.

Before submitting, **please make sure that there is a space available**. To make sure, you should check **before** you write the character sheet, and **after** you write the character sheet, just to be safe.

If a space is taken suddenly while someone is still writing, and that character is well fleshed out, PM me and I may work on making them a miscellaneous character that features in some other way. I don't like to waste good effort, after all, and sometimes these SYOT's are filled unexpectedly within a few days. In all honesty, the more characters the better. Please do not be put off if the space is taken, PM me and I'll see what I can do under the circumstances.

So, anyhoo, the Tribute Rota as of currently:

 **[SYOT]**

 **[ 22/24 PLACES FILLED :** 21/06/2016 **]**

 **DISTRICT 1** (FULL)  
 **MALE:** Luxifer, 18.  
 **FEMALE:** Mayree Sioux, 18 **  
[ MENTORED BY:** CASHMERE KELLI & AUGUSTUS BRAUN **]**

 **DISTRICT 2** (FULL) **  
** **MALE:** Revan Black, 18.  
 **FEMALE:** Hannah Slate, 15. **  
** ** **[ MENTORED BY:**** LYME & BRUTUS ****]****

 **DISTRICT 3**  
 **MALE:** Otto Albuttain, 17. **  
** **FEMALE:** Xenon Aldia, 18. **  
[ MENTORED BY:** WIRESS TELLE & BEETEE LATIER **]**

 **DISTRICT 4**  
 **MALE:** Sullivan Armitage, 17.  
 **FEMALE:** [RESERVED] **  
[ MENTORED BY:** FINNICK ODAIR & MAGS SEASMITH **]**

 **DISTRICT 5** (FULL)  
 **MALE:** Shepard Wright, 15.  
 **FEMALE:** Cassiopeia Watson, 18. **  
[ MENTORED BY:** PORTER MILLICENT TRIPP  & *ISSAK WYATT* **]**

 **DISTRICT 6** (FULL)  
 **MALE:** Harley Eiffel, 17. **  
** **FEMALE:** Kiara Wright, 16. **  
[ MENTORED BY:** KIRK CAMREN, AKA 'MORPHLING MALE' & BRUNEL BRIYAN AKA 'MORPHLING FEMALE' **]**

 **DISTRICT 7** (FULL)  
 **MALE:** Bertram Barker, 16.  
 **FEMALE:** Bryar Rowens, 17. **  
[ MENTORED BY:** JOHANNA MASON & BLIGHT BLAYNE **]**

 **DISTRICT 8** (FULL)  
 **MALE:** Giacomo Velvero, 15.  
 **FEMALE:** Delaine Hodden **  
[ MENTORED BY:** CECELIA KEENVALE  & *SASH MELIS* **]**

 **DISTRICT 9**  
 **MALE:** Otis Barley, 16.  
 **FEMALE:  
[ MENTORED BY:***GWENITH SUNNORIA* & *HARVEY BRAN* **]**

 **DISTRICT 10** (FULL)  
 **MALE:** Ichor Chase, 18.  
 **FEMALE:** Xolanne Navarrete, 18. **  
[ MENTORED BY:** *ORFORD OWEN* & *EVE DUSKWOOD* **]**

 **DISTRICT 11**  
 **MALE:** Lewis Allister, 16.  
 **FEMALE:  
[ MENTORED BY:**CHAFF & *ISBEL ULA* **]**

 **DISTRICT 12** (FULL)  
 **MALE:** Patrick Gallovale, 18.  
 **FEMALE:** Serenity Goulding, 16. **  
** **[MENTORED BY:** KATNISS EVERDEEN & PEETA MELLARK **]**

 **[SYOT]**

Well, there is the list. Now for the character sheet itself.

This thing is BIG, so feel free to delete any information you don't feel is necessary ―― I encourage people to complete it, but it is entirely down to the submitter. Please do not, however, use a different character sheet, as I am familiar with this specific format and because I sometimes develop the IQ of a dense pot plant on occasion, I may end up getting confused.

 **But I Must Warn You, Please, With Obnoxious Pronunciation, Formatting, Capitalizing And Attention Grabbing Bolt Lettering:**

 **PLEASE, PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE, DO NOT PUT CHARACTER SUBMISSIONS IN REVIEWS. PM ME. PLEASE. IT MAKES EVERYTHING SO MUCH EASIER AND I CAN SEE THEM WITHOUT SIFTING THROUGH REVIEWS CONSTANTLY.  
IT ALSO MAKES IT REALLY REALLY REALLY HARD TO SEE FEEDBACK IF OT's BIOGRAPHIES ARE IN THE WAY. PM ME. I PROMISE I DON'T BITE.**

...

 _Anyhoo_

Here is the character sheet, you can also find a copy and paste version on my bio. When filling it out, please deleate [anything written within the brackets] for ease of reading.

 **[SYOT CHARACTER SHEET]**

 **Name:**

 **Known Alias/Nicknames:** [Any Nicknames your character may have, either a personal one, a family one, or a nickname other tributes might give them] **  
** **Known Titles:** [Y'know, Miss, Sir, Madam, Master, Mrs, etc.]

 **Date of Birth:  
Age:**[Between 12 to 18]

 **Gender:**

 **Ethnicity:** [Now I'm at least 200% sure that in the HG Universe, classical Ethnicity classifications like "African-American" might not typically be accurate, but I am using this as a frame of reference. Anthropologists recognize 3 'basic races': Caucasian (White), Mongoloid (Asian) and Negroid (Black/African[ &]Amercian) While your character might not refer to them as such, humans are categorized in such races.]  
 **District:**

Physical Characteristics

 **Appearance:** **  
** **Notable physical distinguishable features/quirks:** [From tattoos to scars and anything in between]

 **Known Health Issues:  
**

 **Dominant Hand:**

 **Clothing:**  
 **Casual Wear:** [What they like to wear themselves]  
 **Reaping Wear:** [What your OT will wear to the Reaping] **  
** **Formal Wear:** [What your OT will wear to formal functions]  
 **Training Wear:** [All identical, but how your character may choose to wear it may differ: do they strip off at the waist? Roll up their sleeves? Refuse to wear socks? Etc. Colours on the uniform are unique for each different, so:  
Avocado Green - District 1  
Rust Red - District 2  
Mustard Yellow - District 3  
Seastorm Blue - District 4  
Plum Red - District 5  
Tomato Red - District 6  
Russet Brown - District 7  
Goldenrod Yellow - District 8  
Bottle Green - District 9  
Fole Grass Grey - District 10  
Chocolate Brown - District 11  
Coal Black - District 12]

 **Arena Outfit:** [Similar to the former, all Arena gear is identical aside from colouring. As due to the nature of the Arena, all tributes will wear Alpine fitted khaki trousers with dark knees, belt, thermal underlayer shirt that is coloured according to their District, dark socks, waterproof jacket with a coloured trim according to their district and sturdy climbing boots. How your character wears these is up to them. Maybe they dispense of the jacket for some reason, or lose their socks.]

 **Token:**

Intellectual Characteristics

 **Intellectual Strengths:** [The mental strength of your character, I.E, their ability to make informed choices, calculate, plan, etc.] **  
Intellectual Weaknesses:**

 **Interview/Character Angle:** [How, when it comes to the Hunger Games, does your character act? Do they put on a performance, or simply act the same way they normally do?]

Education:  


 **Basic Schooling:  
** **Occupational Training:** [Katniss Everdeen hunted from a young age; she could climb trees, use a bow, etc. Depending on your OT's District, these may change]

Combat and Defense Capabilities

 **Strengths:**  
 **Offence:  
** **Defence:**

 **Weaknesses:  
** **Offence:  
** **Defence:**

 **Weapon Preference:** [May be District related ―― or something they picked up in the training centre]

 **During their Gamemaker's session, what would your character do?  
What would their overall score be?**

Physiological Characteristics:

 **Personality:**

 **Likes:**  
 **Dislikes:**

 **Fears/phobias:**

 **Favorite colour:**

 **Hobbies:**

Affiliation Infomation:

The Following is how your character responds to others of the following. For example, most tributes may be hostile in a fight, but how they personally _feel_ may differ.

 **Disposition to the Capitol:  
** **Disposition to the Peacekeepers:**

 **Disposition to District 1:  
Disposition to District 2:  
Disposition to District 3:  
** **Disposition to District 4:  
Disposition to District 5:  
Disposition to District 6:  
Disposition to District 7:  
Disposition to District 8:  
Disposition to District 9:  
Disposition to District 10:  
Disposition to District 11:  
** **Disposition to District 12:**

 **Disposition to their Mentors:** [If your Character is from 5, 6, 9 or 10 please PM me for more info on them]

 **How did they come to be chosen?** [Where they the best possible candidate? Or did they 'volenteer' themselves for the greater good? Why did your OT end up being chosen?]

Background Information

 **Current Residence:**

 **Martial Status:** [Unlikley to be married, of course, but put down any potential serious relationships, such as a boyfriend or girlfriend ―― or, if they may be willing to develop one with another tribute]

 **Relationships:  
** **Known Family Members:** Add/Delete as applicable.  
 **Known Significant Associates:**

 **Occupation Status:**

 **Current Occupation:** [In some Districts, Tributes may have some form of career already, or some may do illegal/unofficial work, see the wiki for more info]  
 **Previous Positions:**

 **Income/Wage Level:  
** **Known Criminal Record:**

 **Backstory:**

 **[SYOT CHARACTER SHEET]**

And there we have it.

Very much looking forward to what people have in store. Again, if anyone has any questions, please PM me and I'll get back as soon as I can.  
May the odds be ever in your favour,  
\- Civillain


	2. Interlude: Victors, Part 1

**DISTRICT 12, VICTOR'S VILLAGE.**

There are times that she misses ignorance.

She doesn't often; she is a creature of action, of quick, decisive judgment. To have any sort of innocence, in this world ―― in her world ―― is the worst kind of suicide. Even before the Reaping, Katniss Everdeen had to have her wits about her. She had to keep informed.

But there are times that she misses being naive. When her sister comes home that afternoon, excited and eager beyond reproach, Katniss misses a time when she could look at the world with anything other than cynicism or mistrust. It's not something she would readily admit ―― even to herself, but she basks in the realization regardless. It reminds her of a time when she was very young, before she understood how Penam worked, before her father died in the mines and her to all but grow up overnight.

It's because she holds some strange fondness for a time long gone by that she listens to Prim as she eagerly reports what she has been told at school. Ordinarily, Katniss would be weary. With everything that is going on, a mandatory programming is odds on going to be a terrible thing. She recounts what Haymitch had said, about the Capitol killing off another District, and something heavy and oppressive settles in the pit of her stomach, but even that cannot sway the quiet happiness she feels at Prim's obvious enthusiasm. She is every bit of the little girl Katniss used to be, in a way, and that makes her content. More so than what she would initially expect, considering recent events.

"I think it's going to be your photoshoot!" Her little sister exclaims then, and just like that, the heavy feeling in her stomach is replaced by a slimy, uncomfortable one.

In her distress, Katniss leans against the kitchen counter that little bit heavier and tries to hide her immediate distaste. "It can't be, Prim." She tells her, working the discomfort out of her tone. "They only did the pictures yesterday."

"Well, that's what somebody heard," Prim says with a shrug. She strokes Buttercup, who sits perched on the table, squinting at Katniss with its ugly yellow eyes.

Chopping the mangled peppers up in an attempt to be somewhat useful, Katniss broods to herself while her sister is distracted. She thinks about her photoshoot yesterday, about the gorgeous gowns that she lounged in, the elegant hairstyles and accessories, and then she thinks about Gale watching that on his television, knowing all too well that this means that she is destined to be Peeta's bride in the near future.

In her mood, her chopping hastens to the point that she is done with her part of the cooking by six. Katniss folds away the kitchen towel and places the blades away, brow furrowed, and turns toward her mother.

"I'm going to see Haymitch," she says. "I'll be about an hour."

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

 **DISTRICT 1, VICTOR'S VILLAGE.**

They have a system, those old enough to understand how Quater Quells work.

District 1 has a grand total of six victors who have lived long enough to witness a Quater Quell. The first, Velvet Ballantynn, actually mentored the winner of the 25th, Terra Kinnimonth. Both of them are alive, older, so very old, but are both keenly aware of what could happen. Oavis Chlodowech won the 27th. Tulip Marylle nine years on. Luck Mallony, exactly ten years afterwards. Agustus was the last one to win before the 50th, having done so in '48. That's six victors who have seen a Quell first hand. District 1 didn't have any other Victors after that until the 63rd and 64th, but they include Gloss and Cashmere in their little group regardless. It wouldn't make any sense to keep them away. So they invite them that evening to watch the broadcast together.

Together. Eight people all crammed in the same living room. The remaining District 1 Victors.

They are watching the broadcast in Velvet's home, since it's the largest, with the most furniture. She cannot see very well anymore, even up close, so they have the volume cranked up to the highest setting. It turns out to be a mistake, when they realise that the broadcast is about the Girl from 12's wedding. A crowd of excited Capitolites all scream and rage at the multiple pictures, some in glee, others in distaste, but all very excited.

Oavis, who has gone thin as a rake in old age, winces with the sudden unexpected change in volume. Gloss hurriedly presses down on the remote to lower it.

"I don't understand," Agustus waves a hand at the swarthy dark girl on the screen and sighs in his aversion. "I mean, I get the whole love stuck thing, people love a good love story, but all this... _fervour_..."

He means the uprisings.

District 1 was one of the first to do so, which is what they expected after things began to heat up in 3, 8, and 11. It started with some of the stock being burned and looted. Then gangs of youths went out and caused problems in the streets, vandalising buildings, attacking Peacekeepers, who are less keen to open fire on District 1 citizens, but what they lack in deadly force they make up for in presence. People were arrested, few were executed. Gloss and Cashmere are more detached from the chaos filling the streets come nightfall, but Ovis and Velvet both have children, and grandchildren, who live outside. They have their sources and what those sources tell them is not good.

"And it's all this girl's fault," Terra growls, despite herself. She believes in the Capitol, their Terra. Not with much enthusiasm, but she understands the system and despairs at the lives lost when it isn't upheld.

But secretly, they know why this is happening. Katniss Everdeen is the symbol they were waiting for, the people of Penam, of the Districts. She's real. Her fire, her compassion, her survival instinct, it's all real, and it rivals people like Agustus and District 2's Brutus in its authenticity.

Oavis passes a hand over his face. Velvet adjusts the shawl that has been settled over her unmoving legs. Terra scowls at the pictures of Everdeen on the screen, and then scowls harder at the overenthusiastic Capitolites. Tulip, who rarely ever speaks after her Games, sits quietly to the side and watches wordlessly. Luck Mallony, who seems to have only grown more attractive in middle age, sits in the middle of the sofa, separating the two oldest women in the room, arms settled behind each of their heads. Agustus sits in an armchair nearest to the fire. Cashmere sits beside him, curled up on the carpet leaning against the armrest. Gloss managed to snag the last chair, but it's too close to the screen to be much in the way of an improvement.

Together, they watch the broadcast with muted interest. They watch as Caesar Flickerman talks, to the crowd and to that stylist, Cinna, who became an overnight star with his costumes. They look at the photographs. They watch as the people scream. They watch as Caesar tells them to stay tuned for the other big event of the evening.

"That's right, this year will be the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Hunger Games, and that means it's time for our third Quarter Quell!"

Gloss, slowly, looks up from where he is sat and turns his attention towards Luck, his mentor. The man adjusts himself in his seat.

"The reading of the card, boy." He blinks. "That is what they do, before a Quell. Probably to prepare us in advance for the worst."

Oavis rolls his eyes, but he doesn't correct Luck.

Probably because the man is right.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

 **DISTRICT 9, THE OATFIELDS BAR AND INN.**

There aren't many rich people in District 9, but those who can afford to get drunk almost always do it here.

Especially when an official broadcast comes on.

Harvey does. Only on the bad days, which, having crept away into obscurity in the last twenty or so years, have steadily declined ever since they first started. He came here on days when he couldn't sleep, when he looked into his eyes of his oldest, well into Reaping age and saw the insistence behind them, the gleam. He came here when his youngest had nightmares that he knew he couldn't soothe. He came here when his wife looked too long and hard at the healing scabs on his knuckles. Harvey came on those days.

Today is the day of the card reading. It's a bad day.

So Harvey drinks. He drinks long and hard, and drinks the stuff he wouldn't usually be drinking; strong and harsh, the kind that burns all the way down to his stomach.

When the President comes on screen, people hiss under their breath. There had been a fire not too long ago, at one of the silos; it spread and destroyed three years worth of grain. Nobody knew who started it, but that didn't stop the Peacekeepers from rounding people up afterwards. No hangings, that time, either. They just fired into the crowd and buried the corpses en masse.

Harvey finishes what is left of his shot glass and grimaces past the taste. The bartender knows better than to ask; he refills it without a word, without a glance, and Harvey reaches back for the drink without taking his eyes off the screen.

There is a boy following the President. He couldn't be much older than his Daniel, seven or eight at the most, and the looks are mostly there. The brown eyes and hair. Strange, for a Capitolite. But then, it was always the ones born into real power ―― the sons and daughters of Governors and Peacekeeper Generals that grow up to be Peacekeeper Generals and Governors that look the most normal. The freaky looking ones are typically the most harmless.

The boy is holding a box. It makes Harvey want to run home and make sure. To go and check.

Just in case.

Then President opens his mouth to speak.

His hand squeezes so hard that the glass cracks beneath his fingers.

"Ladies and Gentleman," the man's voice crackles through the old speakers. The room goes silent. "This is the 75th year of the Hunger Games."

The people on the screen, thousands upon thousands of Capitolites, all cheer. It makes the speakers pop sharply, and the men closest to the television set flinch away in reflex.

"It was written in the charter of the games, that every twenty-five years, that there would be a Quarter Quell. To keep fresh, for each new generation, the memory of those who died and the uprising against the Capitol. Each Quater Quell is distinguished by games of a special significance."

Harvey thinks back without wanting to.

He remembers all the names of those who died, both the boys and the girls. They lost four that year. Saffron and George. Cornille and Ayra. Four kids that followed on from twelve, that were then followed on by... God, forty-six.

Sixty-two kids.

And Harvey knows the names of each and every last one of them.

"And now on this day, the 75th anniversary of our defeat of the Rebellion, we celebrate the third Quater Quell." The President says.

Someone throws their glass at the wall. "Get on with it!"

"Shut up!" Someone else roars.

Harvey blinks, takes a sip of his liquor. The bartender to his right doesn't appear to be even breathing.

"As a reminder to those who Rebelled, who without mercy, lead their own to needless slaughter," the President turns to the boy and opens the box. He takes a card, which, stacked neatly behind it, are seemingly hundreds of others. Harvey hopes they're bluffing. By damn, he hopes they are bluffing. After reading what is written down on there, the man calls out. "On this third Quater Quell games, the male and female tributes..."

A collective breath is held.

"... Are to be reaped by the existing District Victors."

And everything erupts. Someone throws a chair, two others start a fight. Somebody breaks a window. Shouts begin to erupt from the drunken mob. Harvey stands up, numb to the core by shock and cheap liquor, and barely registers as the bartender swears and pulls him out through the back door.

"Go!" He shouts, pushing him away from the property once they are outside and alone. "Go before they realise just who you really are!"

Harvey, still holding the drink in his hand, says nothing as he walks home.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

 **DISTRICT 3, VICTOR'S VILLIAGE.**

They sit together, as they often do. Close but not touching. Attentive to each other's presence, but omitting all the same.

She is the first of them to speak, long after the television screen has gone dead, illuminated by technology that spans his living room floor, the surfaces of his furniture ―― some intact, most dismantled.

"69,700." She starts.

"From that we must choose," he finishes. Beetee brings his glasses up from where they were hanging off his nose with a push of the finger. "I propose we go to the Mayor's office, find files."

"An assassination of character," Wiress whispers, and closes her eyes tight. Her hands fly up to each side of her face.

Beetee slides off of the sofa and moves across the carpet on his knees, until he is facing her. He brings her hands down.

"Not now," Beetee replies. As he says these words, he formulates plan after plan, complex systems of intentions that branches off into one, large strategy. One he will share in due time.

He lets Wiress take his hands.

"Now we must act."


	3. Interlude: Victors, Part 2

**DISTRICT 2, TRIBUTE TRAINING CENTRE.**

"Well I think we can all agree," Brutus says as he bats the morning snow off of his shoulders. "We stick to the original plan."

The morning after the card reading is quiet, subdued. For District 2 it was never going to be any different; every year is a selection process, a series of hurdles and tests that push a potential Tribute to the ultimate pinnacle of their abilities. Nothing is unexpected. It's this reason why they come home so often, with so many Victors. It's this reason why there are nearly seventeen of them stood in a circle waiting, from the very youngest; 73rd's winner, Curio ―― who is still as crazy as he was when he came out of the Arena two years ago after that infernal, infernal bloodbath ―― to the very oldest, the 24th's Marius, who turned sixty-eight this summer and stands with his hands behind his back, as proud and strong as the mountains that can be seen from the nearby window.

"Agreed," Marius calls. "Come on in, Brutus."

Brutus steps into the circle of Victors and waits. Nobody says anything for a moment or two. The silence is deafening. You can hear the cogs turning in people's heads.

Lucius is Brutus' mentor. A beefy man, made hard with age and harder with experience. He brushes a hand across his bearded jaw and says, in thought. "We need to choose carefully,"

"Oh?" Someone snorts. Lucius glared.

"Everyone will be on Twelve's side this year," and they all look to him, eyes sharp. He's right. "The only reason we lost the boy last year was because of their stupid lover's act. Such a performance is infectious ― It'll carry on. People will be rooting for Twelve's kids regardless of who they happen to be."

Winston is one of the younger Victors and one of Brutus'. He won true; killed seven other tributes and earned his win in a straight up fight with Four's boy. "So we need an actor?" He asks.

"I'd say someone likable. That seems to be a trend recently," Lyme grumbles, displeased.

Marius clears his throat. "I propose we set out a boundary."

There is a system in District 2 when it comes to selecting potential Tributes. Years of training, of tests and evaluations, and in the end, come May, they have narrowed the potential crop down to eight or nine out of sixty, which comes down to four per gender ―― the 'volunteers' and, if necessary, their backups. It's all very precise. No female tribute goes before or after the age of sixteen, no male after or before seventeen. It gives them the edge they need.

But, now, none of them really know if that edge is enough. They had the edge in the 74th; two fine, strong tributes, but they both fell regardless. Clove went well; she died in a fight, but Cato... It wasn't right. That much they all know. There was only ever one deliberate killing before now in the Games by the Capitol, and that was when that crazed lunatic Titus managed to get into the Arena and started desecrating bodies. The Gamemakers made that decision. If they will again, nobody knows; but they can't chance it. Not again.

"I don't think so," Enobaria bares her teeth, slightly, in her pent up rage. "The Capitol will be out to end Twelve, there is no hedging around it. They want them humiliated."

"They want us _all_ bloody humiliated," Lucius breathes out. "Think about it. Your kids die and for the first time in... forever, there is someone other to blame than the Capitol itself. That'll nip most of the so-called rebellion in the bud in the meat Districts, for sure."

They all share a universal nod. Good. Less blood spilt on the ground when it should be in an Arena.

In District 2, there has been no fighting as of yet. Disagreements, maybe. But no fighting. According to their sources, however, the same can't be said for anywhere else. Judging by the broadcasts, the morale of Twelve has been beaten so far back, they're practically mine deep, but in other places, it's building up momentum like an upcoming storm.

Marius nods his head too, but it seems to be for a different reason. He clasps his hands together. "Then collectively we will all decide, for the benefit of the Tributes. We need solid decisions. Any proposals?"

"No one under the age of fourteen," Lyme says suddenly. "Perhaps sending in a younger tribute might pay off, but we don't want anyone too young or immature. It worked for Odair."

"Yeah, but he's a bloody dream boat, aint' he?" Someone snorts, and they all share a laugh, but it fades.

The oldest among them nods his assent. "I agree,"

"Second." Lucius matches.

"Third," Lyme calls out too, and there is a flurry of other agreements until they have just a little over half.

"Then it is decided," Marius blinks. "The cutoff will be fourteen. Another limitation I propose this year is underlying Tribute relationships. After what happened with those two, I do not wish to see a repeat."

They know. Marius is not talking about Twelve.

The honest to Snow love in Cato and Clove's eyes when they were promised two Victors from the same District was too much to look at. It was cruel, unnecessarily cruel, but it was the kick they both needed. The kick that killed them, too.

"I agree," Brutus nods.

"Second,"

"Third,"

"Fourth,"

A sigh. Marius shifts his weight, like he is reading for a fight. "So be it," he calls. "I suggest everyone makes their recommendations. In exactly a week from now, I expect to see at least one male and female to put forward. We will consult, then let this year's Mentors decide."

No one calls for any amendments after that, but even so, the atmosphere in the room lightens.

"C'mon," Brutus says to his Victors. "Let's head back, I've got some beer that needs drinking."

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

 **DISTRICT 5, VICTOR'S VILLIAGE.**

There are only two of them left now, after 75 years. There used to be more ―― one more, Duncan, but he passed away two years before now, in his sleep. Heart attack. It left two Victors for the whole of District 5. Two Victors to choose two Tributes out of 24,000 children at Reaping age. 24,000 children. Hardly any of them even prepared for the Arena.

Hell, Issak thought as he settled Proter down on her chair, giving a sidelong glance at their only living Tribute, Saul, who's hands still shook and trauma's remained potent. None of them were ever prepared.

"What do you think?" Porter asked, stern but quiet. Her back arched awkwardly, the skin between her eyebrows creasing in pain, and Issak put down his liquor bottle to adjust her again.

"Someone willing," he sighs, long and hard. "That is all I ask."

Saul screamed and tried to run on the day of his Reaping ―― he had to be shoved on the stage by Peacekeepers. He got a training score of three. He's Panem's most Unlikely Victor, and that is not a title that goes congratulated. The boy flinches at Issak, and the man himself goes for his bottle as he settles down beside him. Saul didn't even watch the broadcast. A secret that goes unspoken about, or even acknowledged. Anything beyond the Victor's village is too much, too strong, and he might not be in the Arena anymore, but that doesn't mean that Issak and Proctor will stop doing what is best.

Most Victors, after about a year or two, come down from panic attacks in a few hours, give or take ―― when Saul has one, it takes him days.

"We can put in a notice," Porter says delicately. "Once we have our volunteers, then we shall decide."

Saul shakes and asks, with a gasp. "Why?"

Issak smiles ruefully. "So the people know who the real enemy is, son."

He takes a long pull of his drink.

"So they know who the real enemy is."

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

 **DISTRICT 8, TOWN CENTRE.**

Mentors aren't supposed to hold grudges. It's in bad taste.

Woof knows why this is happening. The Quell, that is. He doesn't remember most things; like where he put the house key, or that his grandson's name is Barron and not Alto ―― who is his great nephew on his daughter's husband's side, who Woof also sometimes confuses with his youngest great-grandson, Corbin. He doesn't remember names, no ―― but faces, they stay. The Hunger Games, they stay.

Cecelia and her children also stay. It is a blessing amongst the endless tides of pain that the Games bring, and Woof finds himself sat with her youngest on his lap, squinting hard at the bright weave of colours the girl had offered to him.

"Mrs. Savernake calls it a wave," she explains, loudly and clearly, and Woof doesn't know what that means at all, but he understands the colours. Cecelia's youngest one, Eunia, has a gift for weaving. She spends most of her time engrossed in the endless strands of fabric.

Woof would have loved nothing more than to join her, but these days, his hands shake so much he can barely do anything other than just sit by and watch.

And remember.

Eunia reminds him of another face. A recent one, maybe a year gone by or less.

The boy that killed his tribute, his girl, who had never seen a forest before in her life let alone known how to live in one, that is who Eunia reminds him of, with her bright blonde hair and clear blue eyes. Woof will never remember that boy's name, no, but he remembers his deeds. His boy died immediately in the bloodbath, but the girl, the one who was stabbed by the dangerous one from Two, that left Woof aching. Then the boy with the golden hair came along, and he felt... he felt like he could forgive.

But now Woof, Sash and Cecelia have a decision to make, and Woof wonders what might have happened if that cruel boy from Two had managed to sink in that blade a little deeper ―― and not in his own Tribute, either.

He hates himself for thinking about it, despises the way it makes him feel; but there is only one reason why the Quater Quell is made out this way, and it's her fault. The fire girl.

It's her fault that, when Cecelia's oldest son, Burton, comes home, he feels like he has to ask if his mother if he will be sending him into the Games anytime soon.

"Some of the kids in my class were saying," he sobs and his mother holds him close. "They kept saying how kids of Victors are always more likely gonna' be in the Games and now that you have to _choose_ ―"

Woof closes his eyes and turns away from the bright band of fabric on his lap.

"No, no," Cecelia says, but to Woof, it sounds like a whisper, hoarse and quiet. "No, I would never send you. No. Of course not."

"Then who?" He cries. "If not _me_ then _who_?"

Sash stares at them from across the room, having just opened the front door, and his shoulders sink.

Mentors aren't supposed to hold grudges.

Yes, yes. Woof knows.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

 **DISTRICT 7, SOMEWHERE IN THE WOODS.**

See, the issue at hand is that the overall problem is subjective. Completely unavoidable, perpetually inevitable, and utterly, entirely subjective. It's a unique problem that is also unsolvable. For unless they manage between the three of them to, somehow, fix three years worth of individual damage in less than a week, there is no other way of handling the situation other than just tightening their belts and _dealing_ _with it_. Unfortunately for the two unlucky sods who end up getting Reaped each year, it tends to be them doing the tightening. They try, of course. They always try. At the end of the day, someone has to. But it doesn't make it any less difficult.

And this year, he thinks, it will be harder. Much harder.

District 7 starts off in the Third Quater Quell at a disadvantage, that much Blight knows. Neither he nor Johanna have lived to experience one previously. The other two Victors of Seven, Acacia who won the 30th and Grove, the 47th, have experienced them in passing; they mentored those who died in the 50th, but that is all there is, and all they have left ―― and they need Acacia and Grove to handle the sponsors.

That, rather unfortunately, means that Blight and Johanna have to mentor the tributes by themselves.

She is not at home when Blight enters ―― unannounced and uninvited, but he has a spare key on top of her doorframe that he got cut during Johanna's early-Victor days that he hasn't told her about and, probably, never will ―― and that is pretty much what he initially expected. Johanna is never home on the day of the Reaping, so the odds were in his favour, most certainly, to assume that she wouldn't have been here today.

It still doesn't stop Blight from checking, however. He is as methodical now as he was back in his own Games, that hasn't changed for squat, so he finds himself running through every accountable scenario at his own, unvarying pace, unmindful of better his better judgement. He goes into the living room and examines the smashed bottle and the liquor stain against the wall above the television. He goes into the kitchen and deduces that she hasn't made breakfast. He goes upstairs and perceives that she hasn't taken any of her jackets. Her axe, however, is gone. That much he did expect.

So Blight turns around and leaves almost as directly as he came, placing the key back where he had found it, taking the flask with him as he shuffles through the frigid morning, boots crunching down on the morning frost and beyond the fence of the Victor's Village. He walks north, for maybe about an hour, until his surroundings become denser, more wild, and the trees sturdier and wider than those grown in District 7's plantations. They are older, these trees. Not the ones from the Capitol; saplings that are engineered to grow almost in a year to keep up with demand, no. These trees are natural things.

The light streaks through the boughs in both brilliant and shadowy beams, and it reminds him of the deepest, most secret part of home.

The gleam of an axe head catches his eye a good hour and a half later into his trip, and Blight pushes on up the incline until he reaches her. He sets down the flask first, then lets himself fall onto the patch beside Johanna with a soft grunt. He winces against the morning sun.

"Fucking tomato," Johanna snaps as she examines the flask's contents. "If you were going to mother me, you could have least done it with something I actually like."

Blight shrugs. "It's either that or cabbage."

"Whatever." She mumbles, displeased. "At least it's warm."

They sit in silence for a long moment, and the quiet caressed his face, soothing his soul, taking away Blight's jagged edges. The things that make him a Victor; a murderer, and he stretches his legs out as he rolls his head back against the tree trunk. If this was any other place, the void of sound the shallowness of their conversation would be laid bare, but this is not a place for intellectual banter of politics and comedic moments.

Johanna drinks the contents of the flask slowly, and the soup must be half-way cooled by the time she has actually finished. Blight doesn't mind, but he knows Grove might. He turns his gaze to her, and holds it until she tuts under her breath with that near-constant, buzzing sort of antagonism that had eeked it's way out of her skin after the 71st and rubbed her nerves raw.

It's the same opposition that wordlessly told President Snow to go fuck himself and pretty much doomed any and all District 7 Tributes for the next nine generations.

"Let me guess," she says sweetly; but it's fake, he knows it's fake, and he couldn't care less. "You're here to make me pick out a kid for slaughter. Well, sorry to break it you to, but I don't _deal_ with kids," she waggles her fingers at the word 'deal'. "You guys pretty much sold me on that."

"Four kids," he grumbles, and Johanna turns to give him a sharp look. So he explains further. "Acacia and Grove decided that we needed to make a list each; two boys and two girls, and decide from there."

"Fuck that," Johanna spits, and she's suddenly furious. Well, she's always furious, but it was an underlying sort of fury; pent up and simmering just beneath the surface. It was in the reverb. The metal alloy growl against her teeth. Always burning, but never enough to take off unless it's unleashed at once. "Fuck everything about this whole stupid thing."

"If you say so." Blight offers. He lost his ability to lose his restraint the moment he was dragged out of the Arena, and if he was being honest with himself, he doesn't miss it.

Hell, one of them has to be calm and collected ―― and it certainly isn't this incensed little firebrand.

Another long stretch of silence, and Blight exhaled. This stretch of forest was one of those places which had no palpable reason to exist. It was a creaking shack created by nature to serve as a reminder that things could always be much, much worse; where everything could be monitored, back in the logging camps and plantations, where everything is documented and every three has a number. Here, it's wild. Free.

Johanna stands, and she shakes off the cramp in her muscles in the same way he does; a learned motion of movements that comes with spending too much time sat out here doing nothing but drinking in the silence.

"I have an idea," she says, and he knows that this isn't an opening for a debate. She's got something and she's going to do it.

"Well, before you drag me into it," Blight drawls as he stands up too, collecting his flask. "Can you at least give me some insight first?"

* * *

 **⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄**

 **Author's Note:** Welp, introduction over. After this, we'll be starting the fic with the new tributes in earnest, starting from D12 and, essentially, downwards. There are still places open if someone would like to submit, or if someone else would like to submit a second character. Remember, those who have already submitted should follow this story, so you will be informed when I update and nobody misses anything. Judging by the gaping, ominous holes in my current schedule, I should be doing so fairly recently.

Just to warn you all; I write big chapters, and the following ones will be big. Like, 5000 words big. I tend not to go over the 6500 limit, but sometimes, I just can't help myself. It's a problem I have.

There also seems to be a glitch currently with my editing program where some sentences, when I break paragraphs apart, repeat themselves. If you see that a sentence at the end of one paragraph as been repeated on the line below, please let me know immediately. Stupid thing happens without warning, and sometimes I, unfortunately, don't often notice until it is too late.

Thank you for all the submissions!  
And I'll see you all next time,  
\- Civillain.


	4. District 12: Patrick Gallovale

**DISTRICT 12** **,**  
 **PATRICK GALLOVALE, 18.**

He knew it was going to be a bad day the moment he saw their faces.

Crawler stood at the head of the line flanked by Grub and Stain, two other bigguns who were idling on the verge of manhood. The three of them all carried sticks, but they didn't use them. They didn't need to.

"This is the ninth time in a row!" Crawler nigh on screamed, spittle flying from his mouth as he grabbed Scant by the front of his shirt and hawled him up high, high enough for his head to collide into the top of the low ceiling. Patrick winced, but did not say or do anything against it. He hung his head.

District Twelve had three community homes in service, none of them run well, and all of them overfilled to the point of inefficacy. Patrick had been living in one of the smaller ones, lodged in tight inside the strip of no-man's land between the Seam and the rest of the town, since he was at least seven; his younger brothers, both of them, were essentially born here. Out of them all, D12's Home For Boy's is the worst place one could end up, and Patrick knows from experience.

Partly because living in a community home was a delayed death sentence, and partly because D12's Home For Boy's was, in the absence of adult supervision, run by the oldest kids, which in turn meant Crawler was in charge.

The nearly-eighteen-year-old dropped Scant hard on the ground, spat furiously and with a sharp movement, threw six coins at the fallen boy ―― the strength behind the launch so strong, the coins audibly whipped through the air and left marks when they came into contact with Scant's skin and body. "That is six! You stupid little slagshite!" Crawler shouted, and leaned down again to pick Scant up by the collar. Stain picked up the coins while Grub looked at the rest of the boys with an impassive, blank expression. Crawler meanwhile slapped Scant across the face. Patrick ―― nicknamed Spider by one of the older Heads when he first came here ―― knew what this was. It was a performance. A display.

Of course, the beating was real ―― without a doubt, Crawler was definitely hitting Scant ―― but the slap was with an open hand and it wasn't with all of his strength.

A complete amount of force would be a death sentence, after all, and Crawler needed Scant alive.

More of a reminder, than anything else. The more he slapped Scant around, the more the other boys would struggle to pay their charges the next week; that was the effect it had, while keeping Scant healthy enough to work himself as well.

Patrick bristled, despite himself. Getting enough coin together to pay their charges every week was hard enough before, but now, with the new Peacekeepers and the cut wages and the poor and the starving more poor and starving, the odds were higher than they had ever been before. Patrick could see that. Scant could. Even Crawler probably could, but that didn't stop him. He has to be in control.

Yesterday evening and early this morning had been a rush. Now that the Hob was gone, the only place to either steal or beg from was the town, and that was dangerous, because unlike in the Hob where everything was cramped and dark and ripe for the occasional ripping, the merchants had more to lose, and they either hit or ―― especially more recently ―― set Peacekeepers after Seam Rats who attempted to steal from them. If they wanted to have enough product to sell, they had to. The trick was picking the ones who would smack you so you didn't try their shops next time, but those ones were all but extinct now. They had joined the ranks of merchants that penned you in and called the Peacekeepers.

When the Peacekeepers hit you, suffice to say, you never got a next time.

And Thread's lot, the ones who they saw the most of; identifiable by the white gleam on their armor as opposed to the gray one, the newness of their weapons, the newly-conditioned Capitol sheen behind their eyes when they dared show their face, they were dangerous indeed. Patrick had heard rumors that they were commanded by officers who had come from District 6 and 11, and staffed by the most deadly recruits of the past five years ―― the ones that didn't flinch at pain when they saw it, the ones that didn't even blink when they watched people perish.

These Peacekeepers had taken to hitting Seam Rats so hard that they died immediately. Quick blows that broke necks and skulls. Like dealing with vermin.

Which was the main reason why Patrick was worried. Very worried. Worried so sick, that he couldn't eat ―― which was something.

Patrick had taken from the Peacekeepers. His charges for this week had come from the barracks just outside Twelve's main thoroughfare, near the train station, and he was terrified. He had crept in during the darkest, most silent of hours and taken just enough to get him by and got out there as fast as he could, but he's not sure if he had managed it. He keeps on feeling eyes on his back. Drilling into his spine. Eyes that are not there when he turns around, but maybe, just maybe hidden behind the black visor of a Peacekeeper's helmet.

So Patrick is relieved, in a way, when Scant is shoved aside and it's his turn. He can get rid of the evidence.

"Who's next?" Crawler grumbled, giving Scant a kick as Patrick stepped forward. He held out his hand with the coins, and Crawler took them, but he didn't dismiss him. "What about the rest?" He asked, and Patrick blinked.

"The rest?" He repeated, dumbly. Crawler barely even moved.

"You have to pay for your brothers, too, seamface." Crawler spat.

Patrick looked around for help. Some of the bigguns looked at each other, but nobody said a word. "But Troy and Flint are too young," he argued.

Crawler stared at him levelly. "Neither of your brothers ever pay their charges," he explained. "And since you are the only one who does, you pick up the slack. They eat, you pay ― or the worthless eaters don't get nothin'."

Patrick panicked. Twelve coins?! That was two weeks of charges! And it had taken him nearly a week to make sure that the Peacekeeper depot was safe enough in the first place. If they realize that they've got coin missing, they'll be on the look out and he'll have no coins, let alone double. Patrick made to speak, but Crawler's eyes went narrow and dangerous, and he had a few seconds to prepare before a fist slammed into his stomach. Patrick gasped out as his guts all squirmed in pain, dropping to his knees and clutching his middle.

"You've got lucky so far, Spider." Crawler leered. "But you're just like your brothers ― a worthless eater. I overheard Lissy and she said you're too sick to work in the mines. Why should you eat all the food if you're not gonna be able to work?" He spat, and Patrick felt a warm blob of thick saliva hit the back of his neck and slide down between his shoulders. He shivered, disgusted. "You've just turned eighteen, and what? You'll age out of here and die on the streets and all that food we wasted on you will be for nothing. Bloody slagshite! You should just go up to one of the Peacekeepers and beg them to beat your skull in. Saves us the favor of waiting for you to stop wasting our resources."

That is why Crawler is the Head. That is why, when this year's Reaping is over, he'll present himself to a foreman and he'll be taken in as an inevitable replacement. He's got the mind for logistics and economics, Crawler, and that is what makes him dangerous.

Crawler was just about to say something else when the door upstairs creaked and all the boy's looked up. "Harl!" Lissy, the woman in charge of their community home, screamed. "Harl! I need you here!"

Patrick looked up in time to see Crawler's face smooth out, his rage cooling so suddenly it was almost more terrible than its sudden heat. His face cleared, and he smiled at Patrick. Just smiled.

"Don't worry, Spider," he singsonged. "You age out before I do, and when you're gone, I won't have to worry about your brothers, either."

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

Peacekeeper WKN-00N9557 contemplated the boy crumpled before his darkened visor, crossed his arms, and stifled queasiness. If you would have asked him three months or so ago, possibly four, about District 12, he would have responded with sharp fervor; the outlying Districts were wild and unruly, they put the peace of Panem at risk by breaking cooperation, they refused to respect law and order, they don't remember how it is that they have survived ―― together, without the Capitol there is no order, no security. Now, at least, he is having second thoughts. Not about the state of District 12, of course. If Twelve didn't exist, Panem would have had to invent it some other way, since the Capitol wouldn't permit a place to exist if they didn't find it a secretly useful interface with the sub-economy.

No, WKN-00N9557 ―― Niner, they call him, his brothers and sisters, because real names are for officers and nicknames are often in short supply, and his Division already has a Keyen, a Zero-Zero, a Five-Five, Big Seven, Little Seven and Zero-Nine ―― thinks differently now. He thinks that the blame, the anger, everything pointed at these Districts, is misdirected. In Niner's view, it seemed rather like debating which was superior, maggots, or the rotten meat they fed off.

But it is dangerous, he knows, to think those things. So he tries not to.

Instead, he tries to concentrate on the performance taking place, watching steadily as justice ―― and it is justice, he thinks. It is. It's justice. That is what they do. Make justice ―― is beaten into the boy strapped down, kneeling in a puddle of blood, dirt and rainwater. He tries to watch without flinching as the whistling crack of a leather whip is brought down on his back for maybe the twentieth or so time. Nobody cares about the laws anymore, he has since noticed. 'Required Number of Lashes' has turned into less about specific quantity relating to one's crimes and more about for how long a Peacekeeper can keep at it before they become too tired or the assailant simply drops dead from the abuse.

Niner has had his fair share during his deployment here. The first one was for theft. The second, he remembers, theft. He is pretty sure that the third one was for theft as well. The fourth was an older woman, one foot in the grave, with dark eyes and sharp, white hair. She wasn't in for theft.

She spat at a Peacekeeper.

Wherever it was deliberate or accidental wasn't considered; she spat at a Peacekeeper and was dragged before Niner as a consequence of her actions. That's his job, see. He's a Captain. A very good one. And that means when Peacekeepers come to him with problems, he has to decide what to do about it; and the one who dragged her in, Little Seven ―― NWF-00G773, was one of those ones who tended to act on his own interests. Those interests, of course, were also the Capitol's interests; and Little Seven took it as much of an offense against the Capitol as he had personally.

So Niner had done what any good Captain would have done ―― he is, right? He's a good Captain ―― and he took her outside and ordered a round of whipping for _Treachery Against the Capitol_ and _Assault on Justice_.

He never intended for it to go the way it did. If it wasn't Little Seven, Niner would have just smacked her around with a baton at half his strength and let her go before he had to do anything really serious.

If Commander Thread hadn't come to watch proceedings personally, Niner would have given her the bare minimum of lashes; five, and argued on accounts of her age and health.

But it was Little Seven, and it was Commander Thread, so Niner did what any good Captain would have done. He buried into himself, as far as he could go, and let the programming take over. He let himself fade; fade away from everything and into his own little world where the world is warm and the mountains are heigh and he's not a Peacekeeper but someone else and it feels like _home_. He retreats to a place that is not District 12. He let himself strike again and again and again until the fetching thing breaks and all he had left was a mangled plastic handle, something that _used_ to be a body and enough blood to warrant a new, crisp uniform, because blood, you see, doesn't wash out of Peacekeeper uniforms.

"You see here, men," Thread had called, clasping Niner hard and sure on the shoulder, drawing him in close and smiling; smiling a real smile, because Thread likes it when his Peacekeepers emulate his own behaviors ―― it makes him _proud_. "This is what Capitol Justice looks like!"

And it was, wasn't it? That is why Niner got a pat on the back from Commander Thread and smiles and nods of respect from Little Seven and the guys from Eight and Eleven.

That's why, when he broke down in the showers the evening after, Purnia, who actually has a fetching name, sat with him in the cold spray and muttered things so quietly that only they could hear. That's why, come today, Niner has done well to avoid any whippings. That's why he has the courage to bend the rules, to simply shrug and say, 'that ain't my problem' when a punishment needs handing down, or 'I did one yesterday, my arms are too tired' when the last whipping he did was well over a month ago.

When SIV-00K5135 ―― Sivvy, to Niner ―― offers the handle to Niner, face sheen with sweat and a few specks of blood and asks, "Can you take over?" because, apparently, his arms are too sore, Niner scoffs.

"You and me both," he complains from behind his helmet. "Come on, let the little brat go and we'll sign off. Too fetching cold for this."

Sivvy shrugs. "In this weather, he'll probably suffer enough anyway."

And that is that.

They let the kid go; he doesn't go anywhere until the pair of them have walked off, well out of immediate reach, until the people are confident enough to make the attempt to grab him and carry him away God knows where ―― reports say the Everdeen Household back in the Victor's Villiage. They walk down the road until the area becomes more built up, until their surroundings turn into warehouses and supply depots and home ―― barracks ―― is just a couple of hundred meters away.

"Hey!" Someone shouts. Niner stills. "Excuse me, officers?"

They turn in sync, and there is a boy stumbling towards them. Well, not so much of a boy. He's nearly a man. Big, strong, despite the clear malnutrition. Dark hair and grey eyes and wearing clothing that looks like it has had at least a few dozen prior owners.

"What is it, boy?" Sivvy calls, and the boy trudges his way over, feet splashing loudly in puddles of water and Snow knows what else until he's a few feet away.

He breathes out, cool and collected and very much unafraid. Actually, Niner thinks, he looks near bloody elated. "I have a crime to report." The boy says, and Sivvy looks at Niner.

"Go on then," Niner replies. He's nervous. He doesn't know why. Something about this is making his hands sweat, and its then he realizes that never ―― ever, has someone from the Seam reported anyone. It's usually shopkeepers trying to keep hold of their precious stock.

Something doesn't feel right about this, but Niner has a duty, and like any good Captain, he does it without complaint.

"Someone stole from your barracks," the boy says, and holds out his hands. Six shiny coins are in his palm. "I know it doesn't seem like much, but I look after some of the boys at the Community Home, and I know for a fact that they shouldn't have these." He smiles, all sweet like. "I mean, most of the coins here are pretty, uh, if you will excuse me officers, slag; they're dirty, and these ones, well, they look new. I think they were stolen. I've never seen coins so shiny since you were deployed here, sirs." Niner tenses. Sivvy makes a noise. "So I can only assume..."

The little bastard is right. Niner knows. Sivvy, probably, also knows. Peacekeepers are paid in newly minted coins; because it's easier to direct their wages away from the machines rather than split them in the coffers, and those coins _do_ look new. But it's so little. Six coins. If they went to the barracks and asked, almost everyone would claim that they lost them; they got three times as much for a day's work, but coin is coin.

"Why?" Niner grits out, and the boy blinks, as if surprised.

But then that smile is back. "Like I said, officers, I look after the boys; and if they don't go unpunished, all the younger ones might think that it's suddenly okay, when it certainly isn't, to go around stealing Peacekeeper propery―"

"Damn straight it isn't," Sivvy growls. Niner knows what he is thinking. Sivvy is thinking about stolen firearms and official documents and Snow knows what else, rather than a handful of coins. It's more about the idea of theft from a Peacekeeper than theft of, say, a ragged bit of bread from the bakery trashcan. "You know the name of the boy who did this?"

There is something gleeful behind those grey eyes, Niner knows. He can see it. It's the same glean behind Thread's. Bloodlust. Maybe. His mouth goes dry.

"His name is Patrick," the grey-eyed little gremlin says. "Patrick Gallovale."

And Niner knows.

Peacekeeper WKN-00N9557 knows what it is he has to do.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

Troy and Flint came up to him maybe an hour or so after Crawler's beating, both carrying their moldy food and looking thinner than Patrick had seen them all year. They were propped against a wall several blocks away. The smells of baking, though less intense this late in the day, didn't help the hunger, but it was either that or the stale smell of smoke. Patrick had managed to get his hand on a loaf of bread, stale and burnt on one end, and he struggled to rip it into equal thirds.

"What happened to your charges?" he asked them, and they both wilted.

Troy never spoke, so Flint did for him. "We tried to see if we could get something, we did, but the Peacekeepers..." He looked to Troy, who looked down, then lifted up the bottom of his shirt to show a large, purple bruise that took up most of his front.

Patrick forgot about the bread and gasped, lifting Troy's shirt up further. It looked terrible, and Patrick realized that it wasn't just one bruise; it was many, many welts which overlapped and had inflamed to the point of covering his chest and stomach completely. "What happened?" He demanded.

"One of the Peacekeepers," Flint looked uncomfortable. Patrick glared at him. "The butcher got one in first," he explained, chastened by his older brother's expression. "He hit us a little and called for the Peacekeepers. We weren't doing anything, we were just looking, I promise, but they asked Flint for his side of the story and because you know he can't talk―"

Slowly, Patrick closed his eyes. "I told you to stay away from the shops."

Troy's shoulder drooped. "I know, but... We're so..." As on cue, Flint's stomach rumbled and Patrick turned back to the bread on his lap. He ripped it into thirds, then frowned. He'd made two about the same size, and one-third smaller. He put one of the bigger pieces on his leg and handed the other big piece to Flint, who took it suddenly and smashed it into his mouth, he then gave the other big piece to Troy. The younger looked at it for a long, long time.

"Come on," Patrick said. "You need to eat up."

He looked at Patrick imploringly, gray eyes narrowing. "Is it true, what Crawler said?"

"Crawler talks a load of slag, Troy."

"But..."

Patrick fought the need to shout and turned sharply to his brother. " _I_ said eat. Come on. I worked hard for that."

Troy sat down beside him and slowly bit off one end of his piece. He looked at Patrick, and he caved inwards. "What if he is right?" He asks. "You can't get a house if you don't work. Can't get paid, either."

He's right, of course. It's the reason why he is awake most nights. They might have extra tesserae from District 12's Victory last year, but that was quickly drawing to a close, and food shortages from other Districts meant that there was no grain, either. Patrick, Troy and Flint all take tesserae, but it's not much when you have to share it with over twenty-three kids all under the age of twelve as well. It leaves them desperate, so very desperate, and Patrick can't wait until he turns eighteen and applies for a job at the mines.

That is, if they'll take him.

Patrick was sick. He knew it. Lissy knew it. All the other boys knew it. He got wheezy when he had to run and couldn't inhale smoke or dust without choking and spluttering. Couldn't work down in the mines if that was the case. Couldn't do anything.

"I'm going to hit up the survey team," he said lightly. "I mean, I'm smart and I'm good with numbers, right? I could work for the survey team."

"And end up like Bim?"

Bim did the same; he was too weak to work down there and ended up on the streets a few days later. Nobody knew what happened to him, actually. He just vanished.

"So what do I do, huh?" Patrick snapped, and Troy winced. Ordinarily, this was Patrick's favorite time. He was with the two people he didn't have to be afraid of, and he was silencing the insistent voice of hunger. Now, the bread tasted like dust. He stared into the market, not even seeing the Baker beating one of her boys with a broom handle.

He's just about to say something when a hand comes from seemingly nowhere and yanks him up by the back of the collar.

Patrick's first instance is to shout and scream, to squirm his way out of the grasp and hit out, limbs flailing, and he gets at least half of that right. His left arm manages to connect with the underside of his assailant's jaw, but it's one thing to hit a boy your own age or a few years younger, and another to hit a fully grown, fully developed adult male who must have been well over six feet and weighed a good eighty kilos. Patrick's attempt to defend himself was borderline pointless; his fingers bounced straight off the man's armored helmet and left them smarting, with angry, throbbing welts where the skin had come against hardened polymer.

The man isn't just wearing a helmet, either. It's full Peacekeeper regalia.

This isn't Crawler. It isn't one of his cronies, either. It's a Peacekeeper.

Troy and Flint scramble away before Patrick can shout for them to run. They know the rules. What to do if one of them is ever caught. There is no time for heroics, no time for a performance; if they stay, they all get caught, and they know better.

"Shut your mouth," the Peacekeeper snaps, and drags Patrick bodily into a nearby alleyway. He's slammed against one of the walls, and before he can even recuperate, the barrel of a white handgun is jammed under his chin. "And don't bother trying to hit me back."

This is it. Patrick thinks. They've found out. They've realized what he has done. He gulped in a mouthful of smoky air and coughed, his heart beating in his chest, pounding, banging, staring into the black visor of the Peacekeeper and praying that there weren't any others looking for Troy and Flint. "Please," he begged, and it felt as though his blood were on fire.

Slowly, the Peacekeeper turned his head and, with his free arm, ripped the helmet off his face. He wasn't what Patrick had first expected. This Peacekeeper was young; nineteen, twenty, maybe; nothing like Thread or Purnia. He doesn't have much in the way of hair; it's cropped close to his skull in sharp, straight lines, but it's dark. His eyes are blue. He's also quite small. Well muscled and fed, with a body sculpted from what Patrick can guess has been years of physical training, but short. Maybe it is his expression that makes him look smaller and younger; it's furious, but under the hard edges of cheekbones and stress lines, there is a sharp terror; his jaw is set tight to stop it from trembling, eyes widened, brow creased. For the first time in a long while, Patrick feels like he is looking at another human being, rather than a blank, white helmet.

"Your name," The Peacekeeper barks, and Patrick splutters something in his surprise, jerked back into the present with a sharp dig of the handgun's barrel.

The handgun, again, digs further into his throat when he doesn't immediately reply.

"Your name!" He hisses. "Is it or is it not Patrick Gallovale?"

That's it. He's done for. If they know his name, then they know his face. Patrick knows better than to argue by this point, or to lie. He hangs his head as far as it can go and sobs in defeat. "Yessir."

The Peacekeeper stills. There is a moment of silence, maybe five seconds, maybe longer. Then: "Did you or did you not trespass in a restricted area and commit petty theft?"

And there it is. His death sentence. "Yessir," he chokes.

Patrick blinks through tears and wonders what it will be for him. The stocks? That was for smaller crimes. He'll be flogged for sure. Maybe even shot. A hanging, maybe.

But instead of being dragged off, the Peacekeeper rears backward with a pent up snarl and slaps Patrick across the face. It's a sharp, sudden pain, but it wasn't anything too serious, and it left Patrick feeling more confused than scared. Crawler had hit him harder. His mother had hit him harder.

"You stupid little bastard," the man spits. "You stupid, stupid bastard."

"I'm sorry," Patrick whispers, even though he knows that, regardless of what had happened today, chances are, without foresight, he'd have done the same thing. "I'm―"

"Don't tell _me_ your fetching sorry," the Peacekeeper growls. "Tell it to the five or so others who'll have a warrant when my partner reports in."

Patrick swallowed, breathing heavily then, unable to digest defeat, turned his eyes to the man holding him at gunpoint. "Please," he begs. "My brothers."

"Will probably be taken in for questioning, I wager, if my betters can even be bothered with proceedings," the Peacekeeper says this levelly, but there is something in the tone of his voice; something flat and heavy and almost mournful. He sighed. "You're in deep trouble, boy."

"I know that!" Patrick snapped, and the Peacekeeper's eyebrows shot up. "Please, I know, I know! I shouldn't―" he swallowed. "But please, I'm begging you―"

The Peacekeeper eyes him, takes in his height from the soles of his shoes to the ends of his hair. Something crosses his face, and he closes his eyes, shaking his head. He looks older than his twenty or so years, but only around the eyes.

"Like I said," he rumbles. "You're in deep trouble."

Patrick makes to say something, but the man flashes a hand, and authority rings true.

"You were reported," he says. "By one of your... who was it? Someone who looks after the boys?" Crawler. Patrick thinks, and something hot and angry churns in the pit of his stomach. "Regardless of who it was, they came to us ― us, as in, more than one person. If it was just me, I would have turned a blind eye. But he approached―" he cuts himself off. Maybe he wasn't allowed to name names? Not that it mattered; hardly any of these new Peacekeepers took off their helmets to give a face, let alone a name to put it too. "―my partner and I together; that means someone else knows, and the report will be filed,"

"Then why are you here?" Patrick asks. The Peacekeeper falters. There is a nervousness that doesn't become him, doesn't belong to him.

The man breathes in. "Because as far as I can tell, you have one choice left," he says, slowly and readily. "And if you don't take it now, I'll make it quick and waste a magazine on your sorry hide." He stares levelly at Patrick, and there, he thought, was the killer instinct. The hard, lethal being that is programmed into seemingly every Peacekeeper he's ever seen."Your choice. You have thirty seconds."

Well, suffice to say, Patrick doesn't need thirty seconds. "I want to live," he pleads, and the Peacekeeper's mouth twists up, if only slightly.

"You might want to," he mutters under his breath. Then, through barred teeth. "Fine."

The helmet goes back on, and Patrick has a few seconds to reorientate himself before the Peacekeeper's hand is wrapped around his upper arm and he is led off down the alleyway, across the street, into the town center. "Wait," he gasps, alarmed. "Where are we going?"

"Shut up and walk," the Peacekeeper growls. His hands are lethal. Patrick thinks. The strength behind those fingers is vastly out of proportion; it's like he's being squeezed by a vice.

Everything is more spaced out here, he realizes. The houses are more expensive, the trees more numerous; there is a long, winding path and, eventually, an iron fence and gate. Patrick opens his mouth, shuts it, and turns his wide-eyed gaze towards the Peacekeeper holding him at gunpoint.

"Wait, no―" He panics. "Not here."

"Shut up." The man hisses from under his helmet. "Keep walking." A jab of the handgun under his ribs. " _Walk_."

And Patrick does, eyes stinging and knees aching, right up until they reach the door and the Peacekeeper releases him again to take off his helmet. Patrick considers running, then, running fast and hard until he had nothing left inside him, but the Peacekeeper must have anticipated this, because he whacked Patrick over the head with the helmet as soon as it got it over his scalp. It's heavier that it looks; rigid and hard and it must break skin, because Patrick can feel something wet and angry pulsing along his forehead when he rebounds off the porch.

"Don't make me shoot you here," the Peacekeeper warns. "That really would screw everything up." He slams his fist onto the door, once, twice, and waits. He turns back to Patrick. "Seriously, for the sake of your brothers, don't screw this up."

"But―" The door is wrenched open before he can say anything else, and the girl stood behind the door, small and thin, dark skinned and grey-eyed much like Patrick, but with the edge of someone high strung on adrenaline and fear, blinks at them both.

The Peacekeeper smiles, loose and easy.

"Good Evening, Miss Everdeen," he says. "Do you have a moment to talk?" His eyes drift over to Patrick, and, at the same time, so does Katniss Everdeen's. "Better yet, could you also fetch your better half? I think this is a conversation he'll want to participate in as well."

 **⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄**

 **Author's Note:** Well. This came out later than I intended it to.

Anyhoo. Meet Patrick, D12's Male tribute. Also, meet Niner, who I may or may not actually make a spin-off story about at some point. You'll see more of those helmeted masochistic dummies (since they, like, actually make up most of the D2 storyline), don't you worry.

As for next time: Serenity Goulding and some Peeta Mellark.

So if ya'll could get me some D11 tributes, that would be cool, too. Baha. I'm so tired. G'night/day, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

Civillian, over and out.


	5. District 12: Serenity Goulding

**DISTRICT 12** **,**  
 **SERENITY GOULDING, 16.**

The only wedding dress in their family is light, homemade thing made from silk and champagne coloured lace. They have it better, in that regard; providing it fits, you don't have to go and rent a dress in their family. Years ago, before Eren was even born, her grandmother wore it as she crossed the small scrappy bit of garden in front of the house with Grandad Tobs. Her mother wore it when Henna was two and married Father. Now, sixteen years on from then, Henna wears it herself; she twirls in front of the mirror nailed to the inside of the cabinet door, hands clutching at the bottom, eyes turned downward as she examines the way it shifts as she moves.

She looks over her shoulder at Eren, eyes rich and bright and she looks... happy. Eren tries to ignore the squirming feeling in her stomach and smiles.

"You look beautiful," she says, and Henna laughs.

"Well, it's better than my Reaping dress," Henna replies, and then shuts her mouth and gives Eren a sneaky, conspiring sort of look. It's bad luck to talk about the Reaping before your wedding. Like a lot of Twelve, Henna and her soon-to-be-husband, Trephor, are waiting until the Reaping is over before getting married. It's a sensible move.

Because Eren is sixteen and of Reaping age, and Trephor's brothers, all three of them, are under eighteen and so is Eren and Henna's step-brother and sister. Eren said that so long as she and Trephor's brothers got out, they can go on as planned with no trouble at all. Henna asked that, when the ceremony actually starts, that Eren doesn't pick a fight with Father's new family _for once in her life_.

"I want it to be happy," Henna says, wistfully, and between the pressure on the district and the cut wages and the misery and the Peacekeepers, Eren will give her that. So when Henna stalks talking about Father dropping her off at the Justice Building doors, Eren tries her best to keep a straight face.

She keeps it up pretty well, she thinks, until Henna sighs at her with that knowing look, the one Mother often gives them. Eren shrugs. "I just don't understand how you can let him," she says.

Henna turns and wanders into the room their share, slipping the sleeves of her dress off of her arms.

"Because I'm more mature," her sister replies with an amused expression. "Trust me, you'll understand it when you're older and getting married like me."

And there it is, Eren thinks. Her future. Marriage, and then... kids, she supposes. Eren doesn't have a proper job; she sells milk from the cow in their back garden to the Baker and in the Hob every afternoon for a good dozen or so coins, which is okay, but it's not any sort of career. It's even less of one now that the Hob was gone, but it's something. She's doing something useful.

Well, she thinks she is doing something useful. According to Mother, the most useful thing she could possibly do is get married to a Good Man With Prospects like Trephor and have a couple of children who all survive the Games.

And that's that.

Eren sighs as she jumps up onto her desk and kicks her legs back and forth. "And if I don't want to get married?" She asks, and Henna snorts.

"If you don't get married," she says. "What else are you going to do?"

"I could get an actual job," Eren replies. "Roseya Fairsong works in the dress shop and she's my age."

"Isn't Roseya from the merchant part of town?" Henna asks. Eren grimaces.

"Technically, so are we."

Henna sighs. "Oh, Serenity."

Eren waves her hands, and winces at the use of her proper name. "I know, I know." She slides off of the desk. "I need to go to the Bakers."

"What if the She-Devil is there?" Henna asks, and they share a laugh.

"Then I'll gladly give up a day's wages if it means I can keep my head happily on my shoulders." Eren bounces out of the room and toward the bathroom. There was another mirror in there. And a sink. "Are you staying for dinner?" She calls back.

"As much as I love my Trephor," Henna sing-songs. "I can't deal with his idiot brothers for more than an hour. I think I'll stay."

That's okay. Eren thinks. She walks into the bathroom and shuts the door behind her with a clomp. The mirror they have in here is a small, cracked thing, but they have a sink that works and a tub that they can heat up so it's not all that bad. It's better than what Greta Summers, her first and pretty much only friend, has. Greta barely has anything, and she shares a bed with three of her sisters and her room with the other two. Eren tries to be thankful, as she looks at herself in the mirror, but all she can feel is something else. Something heavy and cold.

She sighs at the girl looking back at her. Mother is always going on about how pretty she looks, how cute, but Eren doesn't really know. She's short, like a lot of girls in Twelve in their part of town, but she's thin as well; thin all the time, even if she eats full meals most days. Her hair, in her opinion, looks too dark; she has Mother's Seam hair, but she has her father's Merchant eyes. They're small and light and they look nothing like Mother's or Henna's. She wonders, if she had been born blonde like Henna, if Father would have stayed. Eren knows that is the reason why he left. He left because he is a blacksmith and he owns a business and neither of his daughters fit the bill. At least, that is his excuse. That is what he told Eren when she was seven and she demanded to know why she wasn't good enough.

But really, she knows that even if she was as much of a Merchant as Father's new children; two blonde haired, blue eyed little angels, he wouldn't have stayed. She knows. Because Eren wasn't born a boy when Father needed someone to train and apprentice, since girls like Eren and Henna didn't fit the bill. Maybe, Father would have stayed then if he could have had a son at some other point, but Mother says otherwise.

She was a hard birth, Eren. Mother says; she was young and Eren came out kicking and screaming and the apothecary almost lost them both. Eren frowns at the memory and picks at a loose seam at the hem of her skirt before she thinks better of it and winces. Fabric is expensive.

"Why did you let Pa give you a baby if it was dangerous?" She remembers saying. She was little, and angry with her Father. Very angry.

And Eren remembers, perhaps even more so, the way Mother laughed. She remembers the way it made the hairs on her arms stand up. "Oh, baby girl, I didn't have a choice."

"You mean a boy can just give you a baby and you can't say no?"

Her Mother had hesitated at that. "There are ways to get rid of it before it's too late, but they're dangerous. You better stay away from boys altogether until your Pa says it's okay."

Eren never got that blessing; maybe she will, if Henna is any indication, but she doesn't want it.

She doesn't want to get married and get stuck with a kid even if she doesn't want to. Mother says that it's a phase, that she'll change her mind, but she doesn't know. She doesn't.

With a sigh, Eren leans forwards and turns on the taps. There is a splutter, before the water comes rushing out, and he cups her hands together and splashes the water against her face. She rubs at the skin under her eyes, passes her fingers over her cheeks, along her nose and looks up again to stare at her reflection as she gropes around for a towel. Once she's dry, she tries to do something with her hair. Sometimes, if she looks cute enough, maybe, she gets more money. At least she thinks that's how it works.

At that thought, Eren rolls her eyes, mildly amused as her reflection does the same.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

Well, Peeta couldn't say he was happy about it.

That's the funny thing about the Games, he decides. About everything. He's not angry anymore; not like he was right at the beginning of the 74th, or during the Victory Tour, when he stared across the crowd of bent shoulders and dusty faces at a family of six. No, he's not angry. That anger had evaporated during the seconds after the trumpets had sounded; when he was too thankful to be alive to be angry. Then it had pretty much vanished during the days after; when he woke up in a new bed in an empty house with the simple, guttural feeling that everything was a lie. After that, the anger at everything had been replaced by a foreboding sense of gloom. The kind you get when you realise that nothing is going to change.

Maybe. As he walks down the main avenue of the Victor's Villiage, his eyes travel over to her house, but he knows better than to knock on; she's out giving food to the people who need it most, like every day. Peeta does late afternoons. They never talked about it; it's just something they _do_.

He considers going for Haymitch, but sometimes you just need to walk alone.

So Peeta does just that, trailing down the road towards the town centre where his family's bakery is. He has put off going down into town ever since the announcement, since the President left them with a decision that no person should ever have to make. He doesn't know how to look anyone in the eye anymore. Katniss understands, and so does Haymitch, to some degree, but the rest of them? Kids he used to go to school with? How can he look at them when, just like that, he could be sending them off into the Arena?

How could he? Peeta doesn't know. Twelve is on a knife edge, and through the suffering he has to somehow find two Volunteers to go into the games. It's not right. It's not fair.

There are a few he knows who could do it. The butcher's kid, for instance, but Peeta couldn't go up to Cayeden and ask him to die ―― and Peeta isn't stupid, that is _exactly_ what it is. Twelve might have better odds ever since their little debut, but he knows that it could never happen again, and worse, that the Captiol would probably make them suffer for it. The people might love them, love their Tributes because of them, but at the end of the day as soon as that cannon fires, none of that will matter much. It'll be the Gamemakers in charge, and all Gamemakers answer to one man and one man alone.

He kicks a stone as he walks along, muddled in his thoughts, and barely registers what it is he is seeing when he steps into the threshold of the town centre.

There is a boy getting flogged, that much Peeta can see, but it's harder to actually take it in, because his brain just straight up doesn't want to. It's pushing away, directing his attention to things like the flowers struggling to grow against the base of a nearby tree, or the way the sun is slipping through the thin patches of clouds. He hears the wind blow through the branches rather than the slap of leather against bare skin. He smells a fresh batch of bread instead of blood. There are two Peacekeepers overseeing the torture, but it isn't them he sees; he sees a girl around his age struggling with a large canister, bronze and scratched from being dropped, and Peeta finds the distraction he so desperately needs.

"Hey," he calls and jogs over. The girl looks over her shoulder at him. "You need some help? Let me help."

For a moment she looks set to say no, that much Peeta can see, but he's lifted the canister up over his shoulder before she can get anything out. Instead, she clamps her jaw shut and narrows her eyes at him.

"Peeta Mellark?" She asks, and he nods. "Thank you, I guess."

"It's no problem," and he thinks; this might be a mistake. Not a lot of people ask about the Games, but those who do can very easily ruin his day. He doesn't blame them. He really doesn't. It's just... "Where are you taking this?" He forces out.

She blinks again, and at the corner of her lips, he can see, she is fighting a smirk. "To the bakery, actually."

And that is when Peeta sees it. He remembers her. She used to come and deliver milk every few days, and it used to make his mother angry because his father paid too much for something they could get imported for cheaper in larger amounts. She's grown since he last saw her, though; and he can't remember her name, by virtue of having not gone back to school after the Games. In fact, he hasn't seen any of his old friends ever since he came home.

Which, he guesses, is probably for the best.

"Well, I guess I'll be coming with you anyway, then." He forces out a smile, and the girl mirrors it, but only for a second; it's cut off when an agonized cry comes out from the boy being whipped. "Come on, then."

There is a moment of silence, another cry, and the girl forces out something, probably to fill the first and distract them from the second. "You knew my sister back before," she says, and Peeta thinks, before what? Then it hits him. Of course. Before his Games. "Henna? She came with me to trade."

He remembers her, Henna. She was blonde and grey-eyed and she dated one of his friends casually for about a year. It was scandalous at the time, even though there was only a year between the pair of them. Peeta remembers. Those where the days.

"Oh yeah," he smiles. "How is she?"

"Getting married." The girl sighs. It sounds like disappointment. He looks at her face, and sure enough, it looks like disappointment too.

"Oh, really?" Peeta wonders why it is she feels that way; marriage, really, is one of the few good things left in this District at this moment in time. Maybe she doesn't like the soon-to-be husband. "That's wonderful."

"Yes," she whispers. Then she looks back at him, and the intensity behind her eyes is something that takes him aback. "I'm sorry," she sighs. "It's just... Have you?"

"I haven't decided, yet." He whispers, and she shakes her head.

"How could you?" She grumbles back, and glances once at the Peacekeeper closest to them.

Another sigh, and she waits until they have wandered out of earshot again before speaking.

"It's terrible," she says. "I'm sorry."

Speaking such thoughts out loud is something Peeta has never had the luxury to really do. So it leaves him feeling... inspired, in a way, to be able to do it here, right at this very moment. He knows for a fact that his house is bugged. He found one, on the underside of a cabinet, not too long ago. He doesn't know if Katniss' is. If so, it's too late to warn them, really. Maybe Haymitch knew something about it ―― he has to know.

"Thank you," he says, because it's nice that at least someone knows that it isn't his fault, that he doesn't have a choice in the matter. "I'm sorry, too; I forgot your name."

She laughs, but it's hollow and flat. "Serenity ― Eren, and I'm not surprised."

"You came into my father's bakery every few days, I should know your name." He debuffs, and that tugging little smirk is there again. Peeta remembers his mother then, looks to the bakery that is creeping ever closer, and for the first time in what seems like too long, actually smiles.

He shifts the canister a little further over his shoulder.

"Well then, Eren, let's just hope that my mother is out doing chores." He says, and blocks out the noise the boy's body makes when his limp carcass hits the ground.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

When she comes home before dinner, Mother sighs. "You've got mud on your boots, darling." She says, and she's trying to make it sound light, Eren knows, but there is a

She says, and she's trying to make it sound light, Eren knows, but there is a tone under her observation, and Eren bites into her cheek. Her boots? Who cares about her boots when there are children her age getting publicly executed in the streets?

"It'll wash off," she says, just as lightly, and presses the fifteen coins into the tablecloth. "I'll clean them tonight. Here, I got this from the milk."

Her mother takes it, even though she disapproves. "You've been paid more than usual," she notes, and Eren nods.

"The recent Victor? Peeta Mellark? He walked in with me. I think his father was just being polite."

She doesn't like the way Mother's face changes, and tries to ignore it as she sits down to take off her boots.

Eren loves her mother, she does, it's just that... Now and again she doesn't. She doesn't like the way she cringes around Father, and the way she's constantly making excuses for him ―― excuses about leaving, about missed payments and angry visits. Excuses about everything. Eren doesn't like the way she makes her dress; in dresses and her hair long, even though her skirts tear when she climbs and her hair always flies into her eyes and gets stuck in tree branches. Then she has to come home and listen to Mother scold her about ladylike behaviour and ruining her pretty clothes, that she'll neve get a man if she acts this way, and Eren just wants to close her eyes and fade away.

She wants to be in the meadow, she decides; looking at plants and learning what does what; that dandelions make good soup and that there are herbs near the electric fence.

"You know?" She speaks up as Mother stands over the stove. "That the victors actually weren't told about this? They have no idea who to choose. It must be so awful."

Her mother makes a displeased noise at the back of her throat. "Must be awful for the poor children they choose to do into the Arena as well."

"Yeah, but how must that make you feel? Knowing that you have to choose? Usually, it's random ― well, not random," she corrects. "I mean there are all those kids who take the tesserae all the time, but having to actually pick a kid who might be able to handle it―" Eren filters off.

And not because she's worried; but because she's wondering if she could do it. Win the Hunger Games, she means. Of course, she's no Katniss Everdeen. She can't use a bow, but she knows how to fend for herself ―― she held her own against Bentlae Peacesmith when he tried to look up her dress about a year ago, and he never told anyone because getting beaten by a girl was 'well embarrassing'. She's real good at science and math, and she knows her plants. She could do it. Maybe. She doesn't want to, of course, she doesn't, but what about the poor other kids as well? Nobody wants to go into the Games, and nobody wants to go in not on their own free will.

She's angry. She can feel it, simmering in her blood and making her fingers tingle; she's angry at the Capitol and the Hunger Games, and President Snow for deciding this. She's angry, and she tells her mother as much.

"You don't need to worry about it, dear," Mother says. "You won't be going into the games. You'll finish off school and get married and life a nice, safe life. You'll see."

Her mother is only trying to be reassuring, Eren knows, but the anger is there. That was the breaking point. At that moment, she was blinded by a five-course serving of rage that tasted bitter, yet surprisingly satisfying.

"I'm never getting married," Eren spits out. "I've seen the way Father used to treat us, and I'm pretty sure he's the same with Ellen. If I don't ever get a husband, then he can't treat me like slag. I can look after myself."

Mother just shakes her head. "It's not like what you think," she says, sitting down plates from the cabinet onto the tablecloth. "The world isn't a nice place, dear, not for women."

"I don't care," she says finally. "I won't get married. Not ever."

"You're young," Mother says, and this time, her voice goes soft, fond, the way people talk to babies, and Eren's spine stiffens. "You'll change your mind."

"I won't!"

"Well, of course, you think so now," Mother says, like she knows, but Eren also knows perfectly well how she feels, and, sure, she likes boys, but not enough to let go of a career. Not enough to just... give everything else up. How is that a life? "But you'll grow up, like all little girls do. You'll realise you want it after all. That's just the way the world works. It's the way nature made us."

She smiles at Eren, indulgent, knowing, and Eren looks at the food cooking on the stove and thinks about taking it and running outside and giving it to all the poor, the starving, because that is how the world works too, but Eren can change _that_.

So why not _this_?

She eyes the boots she has just taken off, and a terrible idea crops into her head. "No," she says, her throat scratchy. Her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth. "No, you can't make me. I've decided."

"It's nothing to do with making. It just happens. When you're old enough you'll see."

She said that, four years ago, when she was twelve and standing in the Reaping ceremony; she;'ll see it's not so bad, and she did, and it was terrible, each and every time. Eren loves her mother, yes, but she is not right. Not about the Reaping and not about her.

"No," she says and stands. " _You'll_ see."

And she's gone, running out the front door and into the early evening, along the cobbles barefoot, slipping against fresh rainwater. Her mother shouts after her, but Eren keeps running. She runs and runs until she's out of breath, and then still keeps going, until her sides feel like she's being stabbed with a hundred blades at once, and she can't breathe, and by that point...

Peeta Mellark opens the door with a jerk, and his eyes go wide when he sees her there.

"I can fight," she says, panting hard, the words barely audible. "I can fight― I... I know about― _Plants_. I can survive."

He blinks.

"What?" His tone is soft, but low, and there is fear creeping behind his eyes. "I don't think―"

She sends both of her hands forward and grabs his shirt. She thinks about hitting him, like she did Bentlae Peacesmith, but then she thinks better of it, and instead...

Instead, Eren takes a deep breath.

"I'm here," She pants, deep and honest. "So that nobody else will have to be. I'm good. I... I think I am. I'm probably the best you are going to get, so... so..."

 _What am I doing?!_

It's pretty much the last sane thing she'll ever think, Eren muses, as she tugs at his shirt again.

"I Volunteer as Tribute."

 **⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄**

 **Author's Note:** Well, that's D12 done. I hope I managed to portray Eren correctly; her nickname for Serenity, I guess. I wasn't sure how to portray this, what with D12's mentors being who they are, the District the way it is, so I hope it came across as okay. And Peeta. Blagh. Why is it, that I can only ever portray minor characters properly? I blame society.

Because it's always society's problem, right? Society is the real enemy.  
Ignore me.

Since I don't have anyone for D11 and only one submission for D10, D9 and D8 I'll be skipping over to D7. Once I have all the tributes, of course, I'll actually re-order the chapters in chronical order again. But until then, get ready for Bertram Barker and some Blight next time in D7.

Aaaaand a little special surprise, maybe. Depends on how generous (and how exhausted I am) by the time I finish ;)

Thank you all for the reviews and submissions,  
and I'll see you next time.


	6. Snapshots of Panem: Niner

**SNAPSHOTS OF PANEM :  
** **"NINER"**

See, the War Ministery doesn't like to wait when it comes to District 2 ―― when they are available, they take them.

It's not like the kids who are slated for it back at the Capitol, the sons and daughters of Ministers who are expected to not have a choice, who study at thirteen in crisp, clean schools. No, for the not-quite-Victors of One, Two and Four, it's about getting them before they realise that they _have_ a choice. It's about getting them young, rather than mature. It's a system. A well-made system, one that has held up for over sixty years.

Sixteen is a good age, you see; for in interest to District 2, it's chosen deliberately because it's the age where most of the trainees are cut from the Program. Boys go into 'Volunteering' at sixteen. Girls, seventeen. Those who do not are dropped, and before they realize it, DacSTER has them.

In the face of failure, many of those honourable ―― children who had been taught from birth how to love and represent their District, to swing a sword at ten; kill another man at fourteen, only to fail at sixteen, are willing to do anything to reaffirm their own worth. There is no baggage with these wayward adolescents. Their families, if in Residency, they barely ever see ―― if their friends aren't with them, then they've been lost in the face of competition. No more education; they missed the bar for apprenticeships. So that makes them, what? Alone, unprepared ―― faced with a world that doesn't revolve around how well you can kill children and charm the camera, rein in sponsors, give a good show, but rather something else they missed out on entirely.

That is, until the Defense Administration of Combined Selection, Training, and Recruitment makes themselves known, and suddenly, these sixteen to seventeen-year-olds are not as alone as they first thought.

And that's the system.

That is how, every single year, Panem manages to recruit over a hundred new Peacekeepers.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

He's sixteen and Commander Galvan wants him for Cadet Leader.

WKN-00N9557, that is. WKN-00N9557. Four letters and six numbers. Ten graphemes, and a dash. Male, D2. Authorization code, Two-Beta-Sierra-Six-One-Zero-Five. That is him. He used to go by a different name, back home; but those are not allowed here. They made it clear that, until he completed his twenty years of service or was promoted to an officerial position, that was his only identity. No more old name. They weren't individuals in the Peacekeeper Corps. They were one, united self. That meant seeing yourself in the collective, that meant giving yourself up.

Giving yourself up. There is a lot of talk about giving yourself up here. That meant no more Strongest Weight:Strength Ratio in Year 9; that meant no more Tribute Training Awards; no longer was he the shortest male in his class, the Good Career, his Daddy's Good Boy. No longer was he the same boy that climbed aboard a train with fifty or so others; now he was WKN-00N9557, and WKN-00N9557, Commander Galvan says, will make a good Peacekeeper some day, if he works for it. That WKN-00N9557 shows signs of becoming an officer, if he works for it. The Commander gives WKN-00N9557 a booklet on the Peacekeeper Leadership Requirements Model and tells him that, until they deem him unfit, he will be Training Squad 6's new Cadet Leader, if he accepts. Of course, WKN-00N9557 can't say no. The Commander gives congratulations and tells him to keep up the good work.

And that is how, virtually overnight, he becomes WKN-00N9557. _Really_ shifts into this unknown identity. From a big, beefy boy into a fully-fledged Peacekeeper Cadet; a young man. One with a uniform and a new haircut and seven new brothers and sisters and a new direction in life.

Because Orders are Orders and they have to be obeyed; they want WKN-00N9557 to keep it up, so he does.

So he does.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

"You are the Protectors of Penam," the President says in one of his speeches. He does one every so often, a televised affair, for the Peacekeepers. Lest they forget. "You are the brave and the forward, the first and last line of defense ― by the blood of the people you serve us unfalteringly, embody our ideals, and sacrifice the nature of human existence for the good of us all."

WKN-00N9557 looks along the line of desks, to the unhelmeted faces. Young, fresh. Some of them can't shave yet.

Lest they forget.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

WKN-00N955 is sixteen and he has known since childhood how to kill. He knows how to break someone's arm in a reverse grab. He knows how to hit a human target with a spear at seventy-five metres. He knows to avoid stabbing someone in the ribs because the blade can get stuck. He knows that you can't get blood out of crisp, white uniforms.

There are a lot of cadets in their year who are complaining about training, and while he hasn't said anything ―― while on duty, a Peacekeeper does not speak, unless when spoken to, or to give direct commands and that is emulated here on all working hours ―― WKN-00N955 agrees. If anything, the whole experience of training under DacSTER has been... underwhelming. Commander Galvan says that is normal. At least, for those coming from places like One and Two, where the training up until now has been hard and constant; but it's necessary, in that case, because the cadets from these districts are "Hyperviolent", and need to be reprogrammed.

WKN-00N9557 doesn't think that he is particularly _violent_ ; he's nothing like Currio or Alder, who had the highest kill scores in maybe five years, but then Commander Galvan gives him a nightstick and tells him to subdue the training dummy before him like he would a Suspect one afternoon during training...

And then it hits. It's in the reflex. The training. It's the target. The weapon. Execute. Go. Kill. Do it. _Now_ _――_ And his first reaction is to smash it across the face with all his strength.

He knows, that it is not as effective, but it's potentially deadly against a smaller opponent and it looks good for the cameras ―― and then WKN-00N9557 realises.

WKN-00N9557 looks down at the baton in his hand and then, slowly, to the smashed in plastic skull of the target dummy sprawled on the mat before him and he swallows back the loathing.

That is why they sit at desks after light PT, learning about the Corps and General Regulations and Law and Justice, Peacekeeping with Integrity, Discretion 3.0, Peacekeeping Professionally, Peacekeeping Impartially, Investigation and Report Writing, Encounters, Authority of Arrest, Use of Force and Processing. All the while, they are shown images of the Dark Days and the small-time Rebellion in Six and Eleven and, slowly but surely, it all begins to click.

They're not Careers anymore. It's time to serve the Capitol in a whole new way.

So he does.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

YTK-00F3807 is from District 2, but he's not from WKN-00N9557's training centre. He's big and blonde, with shoulders that were square, strong and burly like a farm boy ―― Only there are no farmers in Two, only quarry miners and stonemasons, so YTK-00F3807 a quarrier, no shorting it. YTK-00F3807 is much bigger than WKN-00N9557, in the sense that WKN-00N9557 was the son of Peacekeepers, and therefore had that smaller physicality; lean and proud and confident, with his well-maintained rage sitting further beneath the surface. He's broad, WKN-00N9557, but his broadness comes from lifting weights and an early prescription of steroids, rather than constant hammering on a punching bag.

Out of their unit, two are from the Capitol and one is from Four. So when they come in after a lesson on Authority of Arrest and Civil Unrest in District 4, the big, dangerous ones from two know who to go for first.

JPN-00D0882 is okay, as far as Capitolites go. He's one of those who doesn't have debts but has a father in the War Council;, and he's short and sweet but there is a command behind those eyes, so he's good, he's great, and he lies on the bunk above WKN-00N9557. The other one, meanwhile, OLO-00N3542, is more... exotic. He had dyed hair when he came in and cried when they had to cut it off; he complains about exercise and tends to argue back after being shouted at. He has debts, and that is why he is here. The others don't really like him. YTK-00F3807 doesn't, but for YTK-00F3807, OLO-00N3542 is too weak of a target. CKN-00N4480 isn't.

CKN-00N4480 is from Four. She was half shadow, every muscle on her arms and torso a living work or art, skin so tempting to touch; every move giving away her strength, but she is from Four.

She's from Four, and YTK-00F3807 intends to never let her forget.

"I wish they'd just teach us the good stuff already―" And by 'good stuff' YTK-00F3807 means combat; and not the Peacekeeper sanctioned Civil Self-Defense System, either. "―the sooner we put those scum in place the better for everyone, I say."

He's stood too close to CKN-00N4480, that, WKN-00N9557 can see already, because he's a trained-Career, and he knows how to start a fight, and that is exactly what YTK-00F3807 is trying to do.

"You can't give those people any chance," he says to the crowd around him, CCQ-00E5502, LNN-00D0039 and OLO-00N3542. "They're like dogs, the outer districts; you need to keep them in line or they get feral and forget who their masters are." He gives CKN-00N4480 a long, sly look, and the feral look in her eyes widens and intensifies. She knows what a fight looks like too. She came from a Career district.

Slowly, WKN-00N9557 slides off his bunk. JPN-00D0882 looks at him with his dark brown eyes from above and he shakes his head, but WKN-00N9557 knows what it is he has to do.

YTK-00F3807 might be a District 2 Career, but so is WKN-00N9557.

And WKN-00N9557 has spent his life training to fight people his age who are both taller and stronger than he. Or weaker, but there aren't many of those here.

"You can talk," CKN-00N4480 sneers. "At the rate you Twos are going with your hubris and pride, you'll all be wiped out come winter."

That's it. That's the bait YTK-00F3807 wants. "Well at least my District remains loyal to the Capitol, Four." He smiles. "We bring honor to Two, not disgrace. We don't go trashing up or homes in a misguided tension, or come home whores that feed off attention and stir up unrest, putting innocent lives in danger by repeating our ancestor's mistakes."

The rest of the bunkroom goes quiet, eyes flicking along the room. He's right, of course, but CKN-00N4480 is no longer someone from Four: she's a Peacekeeper Cadet, now. Hence the haircut and name and tattoo and tracker and uniform.

"That's the problem with you other districts; you get complacent when we go easy on you, think you deserve more when you're weak; that's why we need to send in more Peacekeepers ― us. The sooner we start training the sooner we can put those feral dogs down for good."

YTK-00F3807's nostrils flair, and the pressure in the room suddenly intensifies by about tenfold; the room heating up with the antagonism and violence. YTK-00F3807 grins, waggles his eyebrows as if it say 'well come on then'.

And WKN-00N9557 comes up behind him as swift and easy as he did so back in training, thrusting both of his arms under YTK-00F3807's armpits, raising them up to the point located on the base of the skull vault, between the point of connection and the neck section of the spine. It's a move his trainers taught him back in the Program, a method used against a physically stronger enemy, and WKN-00N9557 feels the familiarity kick in as he pushes forwards and seizes the wrist of YTK-00F3807's other hand and slams the front of his forehead into the side of the bunk.

"That's enough," he says. WKN-00N9557 is not raising his voice. Instead, he tries to emulate his father's own behaviours; no getting angry, no getting loud. Just say what you have to say and make sure you are heard.

YTK-00F3807 tries to struggle, but WKN-00N9557 keeps his hands higher, inclining the upper part of his torso and back and sticking his stomach forward, until the only way YTK-00F3807 can even attempt to escape is if he tries to fall onto the ground, but WKN-00N9557 can counter that by pressing the man's arms down with force, resulting in a sharp pain in the neck and sudden vertigo.

He looks at CCQ-00E5502 and LNN-00D0039. "Save it for the meat. If you want to talk cripe, do it somewhere else."

To make his point known, he does press down on YTK-00F3807's arms, but not as hard as he could.

"You're Peacekeepers, now, not Careers. That shite is for the Arena, not my bunkroom."

And because orders are orders and have to be obeyed...

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

They shoot FFD-00R3953 for the crime of attempted AWOL.

The Peacekeeper Corps and DacSTER means to make him an example. Here, they say, showing the body live on television, here is what happens to those who would dare defect, defy, rebel. This is what you shall suffer.

Here before you, on this screen, is the cooked blood and collapsed charred flesh of your brother, of the thing who was once your brother, of the anomaly, the broken.

Here, they say, lies failure. See how broken it is. See how bloodied. See the obscene redness of treachery's blood against human skin. He is a Dissenter ―― Captial D ―― and like all Dissenters, he is powerless. Weaker than us. See how small he is, without his bodyarmour, see how weak, how he breaks down and dies before weapon's fire. See how powerful we are against treachery.

See how powerful the Capitol is. See here. _Look_.

Here he lies, formerly-FFD-00R3953, he-who-would-have-left. Here is what happens, they say, to any of those Peacekeepers, any of those Cadets, any of them, that defect. This is what happens.

Here is the example.

You are not traitors. You are not of the districts; ungrateful and disobedient. You are Peacekeepers. You are the Protectors of Penam. You are the brave and the forward, the first and last line of defense.

A body, cooked and smouldering by laser fire, a boy of intermediate age, hair blackened and whispering ―― cut down by his very squadmates ―― is meant to say all of the above and more, is meant to stand as a fixed point.

But WKN-00N9557 watches the feed with his tongue thick in his mouth, his hands sweating within his gauntlets, one white helmet in a sea of white helmets, and he thinks: this is what they do to those who are caught.

But of course, that goes unsaid.

Orders are orders.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

WKN-00N9557 celebrates his seventeenth birthday under the thrum of drill and the drone of propaganda.

He is known to his squad as Niner, now. Niner likes his new name. "The traitor FFD-00R3953," he spits during the weekly Moral Meeting. "He was never a Peacekeeper. He was never one of us." His squad nod around him.

That is what Commander Galvan says. That is what the President says. They nod and nod and nod and mumble their assent. Yes. That is what they say.

"He's scum," agrees Olo, and Keyen hums under her breath. TK grunts. Linn and Zero-Zero don't say anything. JP blinks.

"Was scum," TK says. "He's dead."

"No," says Big Seven. She's shaven-headed and silver-eyed, black as night. Niner likes her, but he's too nervous to say anything. "No, he's not. I have a brother in the corps; he was on patrol in Nine, and they were told to keep an eye out for him. He said that his body had gone missing after..."

Her voice trails off. Niner wets his lips. He thinks of that Peacekeeper, the one people used to call Red because of his hair, killed by his squad. Killed. Maybe.

"I heard," he says, treading soft, treading slow, words sneaking into the conversation, curling up from his throat, "that... that some think ," and here he stops. Treachery. It tastes of copper. It tastes of blood. He thinks of Red, of Civilians and Commanders who do not remember and Peacekeepers who never forget, because all that they own is what they see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears and even then they do not own these things, because Big Seven could ―― if she was commanded to ―― forget that she had a brother let alone had that conversation―

But she didn't forget. She is saying.

And so Niner says, "That some think that he was a Peacekeeper."

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

 _ **THE DEFENSE ADMINISTRATION OF COMBINED SELECTION, TRAINING, AND RECRUITMENT,  
OFFICAL HANDBOOK FOR PANEM PEACEKEEPERS.**_

 _ **CHAPTER VI:** KNOW THE DISSENTER._

 _The Complete Guide To Predicting And Identifying Dissenter, Terrorist, Criminal And Traitor Activities For The Honorable Peacekeeper._

 _ **PART I:** THE HONOURABLE PEACEKEEPER'S MISSION._

 _The Peacekeeper Corps has spent many a long year studying the unlawful criminal behaviour of dissenting Traitors to better understand and counter Moral and State crime. The role of Peacekeepers in preventing and combating acts of heinous terrorism, traitorous activity, and military dissent requires serious_ study, _and requires those in the front line of defense, the Peacekeepers Corps, to be as knowledgeable as possible in effort of combating those who would mean Panem harm._

 _You, the Peacekeepers of future society, have received the very best training for the continued fight against Traiterous intentions, but this handbook is imperative for those honourable officers who realize that they need to begin additional education today._

 _It is **strongly recommended** by the Corps that all Peacekeepers read the following information for the betterment of Panem, the people, and the President._

 _The most critical component of Traitor education starts with you, the honorable Peacekeeper, in learning how to recognize and predict an attack. Those with the proud and glorious mission of upholding Panem's security need to be well versed in Traiterous attacks and dissent preincident indicators, or PADPIs. PADPIs are behaviours; they are actions any and all would-be-criminals and undesirable traitors must carry out before they carry out actions against Panem. You have been trained in the past to call this process as "profiling", the science used to identify the dangerous Traitors hiding among the lawful and pure. You have been trained to watch individual behaviours, as well as their age, gender, and appearance._

 _The Peacekeeper Corps need to seek answers to these questions:_

 _• Who among us represents a threat?_  
 _• What makes these assailants morally capable of undertaking such crimes?_  
 _• If conspiring to commit heinous terrorism, what options do these Traitors have for carrying out harm?_  
 _• If conspiring to dissent from honourable service, what options do these nonconformists have for attempted AWOL?_  
 _• If conspiring to commit high treason, what options to these traitors have for cooperation with so-called rebels?_  
 _• How might the above act to carry out such crimes?_  
 _• Most importantly, what behaviours can Peacekeepers observe when the Traitors are preparing or ready to act?_

 _These questions, to the uneducated-yet-well natured individual, may seem derogatory to Panem and it's most effective security and military establishments, but do not concern yourself. For the Honourable Peacekeeper, these questions will lead to observable behaviours and actions of Traitors and their deceitful supporters, bringing us victory and triumph over all enemies who dare commit themselves against Panem and it's people._

―― _Excerpt from **the** **Defense Administration of Combined Selection, Training and Recruitment Handbook for State Peacekeepers** ,  
by MMS Publications Lmt. Dr._ _Manius Licinius; PK. Commander, Maximus._  
 _Chapter VI, Part I. Page 458._

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

Medium Seven wants to report her.

"Spreading dissent," he says. He's very young. His eyes are fiery with hate. He's got the words of the Capitol on his bones. "It's a dangerous, ridiculous lie."

Peacekeepers do not have friends. Peacekeepers do not have sisters or brothers or family, and yet Medium Seven comes to Niner before he goes to a superior ―― not because of programming, but because it feels normal, it feels right, to discuss these things.

Raised from birth to a chorus of propaganda, the song of death, and some things can never be crushed: namely the teenage urge to _talk_.

"It is," says Niner, though he does not know precisely what Medium Seven means: the lie that FFD-00R3953 was a real Peacekeeper; that he is alive; that he escaped at all.

There are many, many lies.

"We should get her purged, for the good of the unit."

Examples are what you make of them. Niner thinks of Red, of the blood, of the hollow ache in his chest. He thinks of the squadron of Peacekeepers who were slaughtered one afternoon after... something. They know the crime but not the deed.

And they know the message.

The message: _if one fails, we all fail_.

The lesson: _if you see someone committing dissent, and do not report it, you are as guilty_.

The actual lesson: _we see your unit as the same entity. All will account for the crimes of one_.

"I'm meant to outrank her. They'll blame me."

Peacekeepers do not have friends. Peacekeepers do not have brothers. Peacekeepers, especially Peacekeepers like Medium Seven (baby fanatics with fire in their eyes and hate on their lips), obey without question.

Peacekeepers like Niner, at the top of his training class with distinctions across the board and a bright, bright future, obey without question.

Because orders are orders, right?

Medium Seven does not say a word to the officer when she comes for inspection.

Peacekeepers do not speak unless spoken to, after all.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

Niner is twenty years old and he has known since childhood how to kill.

And while Niner can't remember how it is he learned, or where; who taught him, the faces and names of his fellow trainees at the centre, but he knows. It's in his instinct and his metnality. It's in the muscles of his arms and shoulders, the sharpness behind his eyes.

He walks up to Commander Thread in a practised beat. Commander Thread doesn't look very happy. Not that he ever often does, but Niner knows his Commander's moods. This is not a good one.

"Report, Captain."

Orders are orders.

"The boy has volunteered." He replies, curt and direct and the Commander pauses.

"Volunteered...?" Thread frowns. "Volunteered for... Oh," the man's face smooths out, even and clear, and Niner is thankful that his helmet covers his neck and face, otherwise Thread would have seen him swallow. "I see."

The man looks at him for a moment, and then, with the tick of his chin, indicates for Niner to take it off. See, Thread likes having a face to talk to. So Niner does, even though he doesn't want to, because the plexiglass between him and the world acts as a barrier, a sheild, and it protects him at his most vunerable. Willing to keep his hands steady as he undoes the safety-latch, Niner pulls it off.

He feels exposed.

"Well, that is something, isn't it Captain?" Commander Thread asks.

"Yessir." He tucks his helmet under his arm, blinks. "He'll die, Sir." His voice almost wavers. Almost. "He'll die."

"Oh I think so too, Captain. I think so too."

Niner can feel his hands warming up. He breathes out, "Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir."

The Commander gives him a look. It's not a look Niner has really seen before, so he doesn't really know what that look means, but it's not a nice look, and it leaves his insides squirming.

His hand comes up under Niner's jaw, two fingers; his index and his middle, and he tilts up Nine's jaw until his head is completely level.

"No..." he grunts. "No."

And then, that smile. The bad one.

"You did good, son. Dismissed."

He thinks of Red, of Civilians and Commanders who do not remember and Peacekeepers who never forget, because all that they own is what they see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears, and Niner knows, that even if Patrick Galloway is somehow forgotten by the world when he dies in the Arena, he won't. Niner won't.

Because all that they own is what they see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears, and Niner knows.

Peacekeepers never forget.

So he doesn't.

 **⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄**

 **Author's Note:**

Well, there is that special surprise I talked about last time. Wooo. There is a reason for this: A, I do it every time I finish with a District (since 12 is done, a snapshot of a character in Twelve, for instance) and B, I got a submission for D8 and therefore I have to write some more.

You sneaky sneaky submitters, you.

 **Also:** A note on my perceptive of Peacekeepers. This is long, so if you don't care for my view on the rebellion and socio-military tendencies, by all means.

So according to Political Science, any military with power will be interesting in maintaining it. That's a given. Peacekeepers, therefore, should be no different.

In political science, especially since the start of the Cold War, the military (which the Peacekeepers basically are) is seen as a separate entity from the government. This is important in instances where the military stages a coup and installs a military dictatorship. This entity is interested in maintaining power, but is usually more interested in maintaining itself.

That means that while the military likes having power, it will give up its power to maintain the sanctity of the military. This is why military dictatorships usually end in the military willing to give up power, because the institution of the military itself is threatened.

(Which is how I sort of imagine President Snow, or his predecessor, maybe, coming into power)

What I see with the Peacekeepers is a power that believes they can maintain power through current institutions, the Capitol, my fictional DacSTER, etc., and so are fighting to maintain those institutions. With the retention of the Capitol and its power, the Peacekeepers remain in their position of dominance and their special role in the hierarchical structure.

So, in theory of a rebellion, they will continue to fight for the Capitol **until they realize it's a losing case** , and that, in order to maintain the sanctity of the military institution, they will support the rebelling districts.

As much as I love the HG series, I don't believe that Collins fully understands the strategy of rebellion. There are too many players in place, too many institutions, for D13 and it's allies to move through the districts and overthrow the government as fast as they did in the books. The system is too entrenched to capitulate that easily, even if it was a hollow shell of the power they were trying to project. Therefore, I think that Collins didn't give the Peacekeepers enough time to teeter over the power balance before landing firmly on the side of the rebels like they should have (see: Egypt during the Arab Spring), which then would have led to a rapid escalation and termination of conflict and the establishment of a new democratic order.

That is why I am interested in the Peacekeepers. Unless you have an army of robots, they cannot be completely controlled. So who knows. This is my take on them, for the most part.

After all, there _are_ individuals under those helmets.

whoops, big rant there; I'm not sure which district will be up next, but keep tuned for more,  
and I'll see you next time.


	7. District 10: Ichor Chase

**DISTRICT 10**  
 **ICHOR CHASE, 18.**

They beat down the door so hard the windows shatter.

Ichor will give it to them, those Capitol lapdogs. They know how to get the job done.

Eight Peacekeepers, a standard 'Toon ―― but all you have to do is look at the bars stitched into their uniforms, the insignias of rank, and one knows immediately that these are not the usual standard Peacekeeper fare. They're wearing cloaks. They're armed with rifles.

And the one in the middle has a presidential seal stamped on the left-hand side of his chest plate, shoulders draped in a short red cloak that reached the elbow on the left-hand side, and the visor of his helmet is clear, see through, and Ichor knows immediately that this isn't some standardized Peacekeeper raid ―― they get those fairly frequently, that is true, but one learns how to prepare for those ―― and he bolts up from his chair when he realises such. "Dalton," he screams as three of the bulky men in shimmering white Peacekeeper plate come barging through the door and down the hall, towards the kitchen where they sat. "Dalton run!"

"Oh, I wouldn't bother, Mr. Chase." The one with the clear visor says, almost bored. He speaks with a Capitol accent; but it's not the kind they make fun of, with added enunciation each syllable and emphasis on the consonants than the vowels. When this one speaks, the vowels are smoothed out, the words still as clipped, but lengthened.

But there is still that hiss on the 'S', though.

And he's big, Mr. Captiol Peacekeeper. Bigger than Ichor. He's a full six-foot-eight wall of gleaming Peacekeeper plate and, judging by the width of the guy, solid meat.

Somewhere inside, in that tangle of intestine, something instinctual squirms, frightened and freaked, but on the outside Ichor is calm. He remembers his training. It's almost second-hand nature, now. They had planned for an invasion by Peacekeepers; always have done, but they also had a separate plan for when the shit really did hit the fan and they were caught out for good.

Dalton manages to get to the back door, but before he can even get fully through, a gunshot cracked into the air as loud as thunder but without the raw power of a storm. Even if they could have been mistaken for the cracks of an oncoming squall there wasn't a cloud in the sky; and Ichor was there, he saw it. Dalton's shoulder explodes with a gruesome show of blood, sinew, and bone, showering the windowpanes embedded in the door bright red; the walls and floor a similar spread. He fell on the ground just as Ichor launches his assault on the one closest to him ―― the one with the clear visor, a Uniform only designated for the highest of the high; the military elite.

The man looks annoyed. With a swipe of a massive arm, he sends Ichor flying mid-lunge, straight into the sink. He lands with such force that the plates left inside break. Something sharp slices along the small of his back, and Ichor gasps.

"I've been a Peacekeeper since I was sixteen years old, Mr. Chase." Mr. Captiol says, he leans forward, voice dulled through the speakers running along the jaw and chin of the helmet, and he grabs a fist full of Ichor's shirt, lifting him in one meaty paw. "How old are you, truly? Seventeen? Eighteen?"

Ichor doesn't reply, but spits straight into the man's visor. His lips tug upwards slightly. Only slightly. Despite his bored demeanor, his eyes are glistening. They're green. Ichor's spittle runs down slowly, smearing at the plastic.

He turns towards the other three Peacekeepers flanking him. "Send _that_ ―" He jerks his head at Dalton. "―Back to the Capitol for questioning." Then to the other three. "Find the one who harbors them, these little spies; I want them all. Every single one of them."

"You won't win. You can't find us," Ichor tries to appear angry, or frightened, but he's never been the best with showing what he truly feels, let alone what he doesn't. The Peacekeeper holding him laughs. It isn't one of humor.

"I always win." It's a simple statement, spoken like a fact. "I always," he grits his teeth, emphasizing the 'S' again. " _Win_." He turns on his heels, still not letting Ichor go, and sweeps him into the front room. Ichor barely registers being thrown; but he lands on the sofa hard, and looks up in time to see the barrel of a white Peacekeeper sidearm leveled at his head.

The Peacekeeper sighs, and with a swoop of the hand, removes the helmet with a snap of a latch and a compressed hiss. The face that Ichor sees is... normal. Not hideously altered like most Capioltities. Just normal. An impeccably shaved jaw; dark hair combed to the side. He's graying at the temples.

"Now then, Mr. Chase," he sets the helmet down, and then pauses, mid-bend, to look him in the eye. "Is that your real name? I prefer to speak on truthful levels. But I digress, as you live and feed of lies as is plainly obvious, I should just..." His eyes narrow. "Move on from formalities." A tilt of the head. "Father is very fond of formalities. I find them..." A pause. "Futile." A smile. "I abhor anything as impractical as such; I get a feeling you do, too."

"Just kill me, you Capitol trash." Ichor scowls. Mr. Peacekeeper doesn't show anything; no frustration, nothing. He just smiles.

"Oh don't you worry about that, Mr. Chase. All things in due time."

One of the other Peacekeepers comes in, there is blood splattered on his chest plate. Bright. Red. It drips and smears. The higher ranked one tilts his head in their direction. "Sir," the Peacekeeper reports. "Two Operatives located and detained. We had to use force."

"I do hope," The leader looks back to Ichor properly. "That she can be revived."

"Yessir. She'll likely pass during transport, but we can revive her. What about this one, sir?"

"I have direct orders for this one, Ninety-Three. You are until further notice dismissed."

"Yessir."

Ichor, meanwhile, was running through every single possible scenario in his head. Most of them were, just as that freaking ass said, futile. He couldn't overpower him. Maybe he could run, but how far could he get? Truly?

Mitchell warned him about this. They all did.

Dammit, he should have been more prepared!

"Foresight his a terrible business," the Peacekeeper drawls, sighs. "But no matter. You wouldn't have won regardless. I've of you for... a period of time, and I always get what I want, in the end."

Ichor bristles, despite himself. "Then why wait until now?"

The Peacekeeper shrugs, as if it's obvious. "Festivities, Mr. Chase. The Capitol likes to embellish, does it not? Everything a purpose, and everyone a use, but we do ours in our own technique."

"Yeah, killing twenty-four kids a year. Stylish."

"Everything a purpose, Mr. Chase." The Peacekeeper repeats, and bared his teeth in something that passed for a smile. "And everyone a use."

He sits down on one of the chairs, folds one leg over the other and the two other Peacekeepers ―― No.1's protection detail, it seems ―― flank Ichor on either side.

"Father," he says, and it's a title; like President Coin or Commander Paylor. "Is a ruthlessly cruel man, but the three of us are the same in a few instances." He produces a clean napkin from a hidden segment on his armour, and settles his helmet on his knee. "Logic, you see, Mr. Chase, is a defining characteristic. It's one of the reasons why we make good leaders. Poor figureheads, but good leaders. Obsessed with keeping the perfection of the established order while maintaining little respect for human life, yet not privy to wasting it." He starts wiping away the spittle Ichor left off his visor. "I abhor anything impractical."

"So you've said,"

"But yet despite my repeating of myself you still do not understand," Another bared-teeth smile. "Let me explain, Mr. Chase. Do you know what I am? Not who I am, but what? I'm order. When things get... out of line, I put you all back in your place. Straighten what you disturb. Fix what you break. Only, you see, you're actually working in reverse, because you ― not you, per se, but your people ― are fixing something instead, and that something is not meant to be fixed. It's to remain broken."

"The people?" Ichor asks. He's nervous, he is, but he finds this fascinating. All this information!

Only, of course, he won't make use of it.

Maybe. Maybe.

"Such an elementary statement but yes," having finished wiping, the Peacekeeper folds the napkin and dispenses neatly with an outstretched arm into a nearby paper waste basket. "But there is a problem, you see. Your... not-District, they have sent _you_ , nothing but a prototype. They send you to a District that is ignored at best, to test you. That tells me that they plan to send better, more experienced players into the field in the future. That also tells me that they are willing to use younger individuals. That makes life hard for me. A spy that can successfully intervene during a Hunger Games? Dangerous. Very dangerous. A spy that can join the Corps? Dangerous, but less possible ― for we... ah, condition our officers."

"Conditioned you, too?" Oh your poor little brainwashed baby, Ichor thinks.

"We are all conditioned, Mr. Chase." Again, that fetching, fetching smile. "But I wasn't, not by Peacekeepers, at least. Oh no, not at all. But I'm smart enough to see through it, too. That gives me an interesting perceptive. It makes me hesitate in killing you."

"Well, thank you." Ichor twitches. "But why?"

"For every move, there is a countermove." Mr. Captiol explains. "I had a teacher, you know. He taught me this. Very smart man, not as smart as me, but what he lacked in that area he made up for in... others. Turned out he was one of you, too, so the President made me deal with him. One of his crueler traits, you see. He likes to flex control by abusing my own. When I found out about you, the President gave me orders to deal with you, too. This example is less about abuse and more about efficiency."

"You always win, huh?" Ichor mocked, the Peacekeeper smiled.

"So they sent you for your observational talents, I assume?" He cocked his head. "Or was it for your physical capabilities? I study close-combat in my spare time. Peacekeepers undertake pugilism, as an occupational activity, as well. I see it in your frame. But you are no warrior."

The smile wipes from his face and the Peacekeeper snapped his hand up and directed his handgun at the Peacekeeper on Ichor's left. A thunderous crack, and the first drops dead before the second can react. Ichor turns just in time to watch as the helmet of the one on the right explodes at impact. Ichor has done some preliminary training with firearms back in District 13, and he knows that standard handguns are not that powerful. He must have some sort of modded barrel. Or maybe exploding bullets.

Shocked, but not surprised, Ichor turns back to the head Peacekeeper. The handgun is trained back on him.

"I am a warrior, Mr. Chase." He warns. "I've studied under the men who defeated your rebels in the Dark Days, and then defeated those men in combat myself. I've steadily begun increasing my Peacekeeper presence since the 74th Games made it clear that I wasn't being... forceful enough, in my dealings with the Districts. I'm a warrior. I've killed three dozen boys like you both in armed and unarmed combat in the past year alone. Would-be-rebels that got it into their heads that they can fight not a power but the _only_ power, and I showed them the error of their foolish thinking."

He blinks.

"Now back our main issue at hand. I present to you, a question: What if you underestimated your enemy? What if you realised how important how important they are, but not who they are in the flesh? What if you thought you could get something on them?"

Carefully, Ichor said, "If I were the right kind of person, it would be worth trying."

"Not just worth it. Instrumental. What if the President realised just who you were and... I just so happened to let you go?"

"I'd escape back to District 13." Ichor replies. "To where you can't get back to me, and I'd tell them what you told me; but there is no way Snow would just do that. He'd... find some way to use me."

The same bared-teeth smile as before. "Now you comprehend." He leans back a little more luxuriously, but that fetching handgun is still trained on him. "We have methods, you see. We slip information to your spies, oh yes, and there are plenty of you indeed! But we have our own counter moves, as well. You become us. We take you, and we turn you into us. Now, the double agents become triple, and the infection infects itself." He fixes Ichor with his vaguely unnerving gaze. "You are my scotoma, Mr. Chase, you understand? You are the place I cannot see. No signals in, no signals out. So we adapt."

"So you... Use us to get information back. Like a microphone, or something?"

"No signals in. No signals out..."

Ichor cut in sharply, "I'll accept a guess."

"I don't deal in guesses."

"Oh, go on, have a punt."

Head cocked sharply to one side, the Peacekeeper considered for a moment, then said, "No."

"No?" Ichor narrowed his eyes. "Sure?"

A glare in return.

Eventually, he said, "Deduce what you can." He only gave Ichor a few seconds before snorting. "Oh, don't tell me I need to spell it out for you."

"You don't need to"

"Maybe I want to anyway: We call you Drones, or Flash Clones. Drones for those who survive being implemented with the equipment, Flash Clones for those who don't. Mr. Plutartch Havensbee figured it out. I killed him before the President figured out before he figured out, and now, I'm going to kill you before the President can use you to the same means as your fellow Drones."

That... took Ichor back, he will admit. He frowned. "Why?"

"The President's pressure point is District 13. District 13's pressure point is the Rebellion. The Rebellion's pressure point is you lot who incite it." His hand tightens around the handgun, and a smile filters around his lips.

"I assumed the Rebellion's pressure point would be Katniss Everdeen."

The Peacekeeper snorts. "Oh no," he actually laughs. It's mirthless. "Katniss Everdeen? She herself is nothing, just a stubborn little girl with a good aim. The President could kill her in nine different ways without actually killing her and still have some ideas left to spare. It's her... image, we worry about. She got lucky during her games; she was Crane's Pressure Point, and that got him killed." He sighs, wistfully. "I actually wanted him killed, you know? Not Crane. I liked Crane. I found him amusing. The Mellark boy, though. I wanted him dead. Blood loss. Infection. Blah, blah. Tragedy. But the President insisted, so I relented ― and I am glad I did, because I like watching the President squirm when nothing goes to plan, but it's caused an... interesting problem. One I can solve, but an interesting one none the less."

He looks at Ichor, long and hard.

"No. President. Thirteen. Rebellion. You." He exhales. "I don't know what your pressure point is, Mr. Chase; but If I own it, or own you ― either by turning you into one of our many Drones or simply killing you, I own the President, and then I own Panem."

He stands.

When the trigger is squeezed, Ichor has just enough time to glance upwards at the clock. Twelve fifteen. This exchange had only lasted twenty minutes.

Ichor will give it to them, those Capitol lapdogs. They know how to get the job done.

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

The Peacekeepers of District 10 are less familiar than in the others, so when Orford opens the door to find one of them holding something wrapped up in a bloodied blanket, he doesn't know who it is, only that nothing ― nothing at all good could come from this.

"This is your Volunteer," The Peacekeeper says, and hands over the bulk. Orford is a big man, but this thing is over five feet long and weighs a good amount; quick observation, the weight, the size, and Orford knows it's a body. A warm one, so alive. A living person. He grips them so hard he could never let go. He grips them and holds them to his chest like his life depended on it. "Happy Hunger Games," the Peacekeeper laughs. "My the Odds be in your Favour, Mr. Owen."

And like that, the uniformed man walks off and around the corner. Owen very nearly swears, but he catches it at the last second.

"Eve!" He shouts instead. "We have a problem!"

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

The flame burns with colours he never thought it would. With each flare, he imagines another set of possessions catching alight. Even from all the way across the nearby field it's like a bonfire, and he can feel the heat from here. He can almost imagine kids throwing some marshmallows in there for a snack. Not here, of course; that's a Capitol thing. One he never participated in but is aware of all the same. He dislikes sweet things.

And this is no celebration. This is the burning of someone's celluloid memories, souvenirs of a life well spent and trinkets passed on down a family line.

How did it go up so fast without an accelerant? He wonders.

The wood is fast becoming ash and the what little paint they had applied to the walls is sliding down, dripping and bubbling. The smoke is being carried to the left by the wind, over the estate, raining down dirty ash like snow.

He imagines people rushing out to bring in the laundry.

FFN-00N9300 comes to stand at his side.

He is quiet for a moment, watching the flames. Then he says. "Package delivered, sir."

"Excellent work, Ninety-Three."

A pause. "And where to now, sir?"

He smiles, clasps his comrade on the shoulder and turns on his heels.

"Now we go home, Ninety-Three." He smiles under his visor. "Now we go home."

⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄

"...vertebrae absorbed most of the impact. It saved his life; were his spinal column not locked his internal organs would have been crushed by the force. 9mmP ammunition, standard Peacekeeper fare. Whoever shot him didn't want your boy dead."

"Just get to the point. I'm an impatient woman."

 _Stop that_... Ichor pleads. _Stop that_.

"Of course. The burns should not be a problem, they are minor, and we are treating him for smoke inhalation. We've ordered some equipment from Three and One and should have most of the damage repaired well before the Games... He seems to be responding well so far, however..."

 _Stop it_! He curls his fingers up.

"Boy!" Something cold and bony clamps down hard on his shoulder, and digs in. "Calm yourself down!" He can feel the indentations of heavily bitten fingernails boring into his skin, and with that dumb, irrefutable evidence that he is, indeed in fact, alive, Ichor stops and breathes again.

Well, Ichor doesn't. The tube rammed down his throat and the machine attached to it does. He can hear the soft mechanical whir as it thrusts stale air repeatedly, in, out, in, out, and it feels like a violation. The world shudders, and Ichor thinks his body is shivering. His eyes are closed, and everything is too loud and smells too strong and...

"Do you know what this is?" A woman whispers. "A death sentence or something else...?"

"Why else would the Capitol send him to us?"

"By a Peacekeeper, you said?"

"Mhn."

A long, frustrated sigh.

Slowly, gently, the dull lull of pain infiltrates, seeps out from beneath those calloused fingertips, and seductively sings down every nerve tendon in Ichor's body. It settles. Aches. Grows. Rises to a crescendo.

And then erupts.

Everything above Ichor's waist suddenly convulses and contorts into a bone-lock of sheer agony, his skin burning like acid and his muscles clenching so hard he feels his bones creak and groan from the crushing pressure. He tries to cry out but his throat muscles close around hard plastic piping and he's gagging and choking and swallowing all at once and it _hurts_ _―_

"Quiet boy. The adults are talking." Booms a pissy, deep voice that blessedly grounds him. The authoritative tone cools Ichor's panic, and he shudders to a tentative halt, still convulsing weakly but thankfully back in control. Waves of adrenaline-sapping pain still crash again and again against his endurance, like a sadistic sea torturing a worn and exhausted rock, and... Wait...

Something is stroking his wrist.

The grooved pad of someone's thumb. The right one. Ichor can feel the tiny raised nick in the skin. It runs slowly back and forth across the raised veins and bones of the secret crevice of his wrist, like a musician plucking at a fretboard.

"You're ok, son"

The pain recedes a little.

"I wouldn't say that just yet," the woman snaps. "I wouldn't say that at all."

"Oh come on Eve, please."

Ichor feels like a jumbled mix of the three sacred no's; hear no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil either. He reaches out blindly like a drowning man, latching onto the wrist like a lifeline and gripping as hard as he can, which, after training, is something. The man hisses under his breath, and Ichor opens his eyes.

"The tube." The woman says, and Ichor is impressed. "Take it out."

Ichor don't have to say a word for her to know he wants to speak.

"But..."

"He will breathe on his own. Won't you, child?"

Hasty hands fumble at the cursed machinery clogging up his throat and mouth, and as the tube is drawn out like a reluctant snake Ichor gags and splutters and chokes, and _breathes_. His lungs work fine. His eyes work fine. Everything works fine.

"Nice of you to join us," The woman says, and Ichor blinks with surprise. It's one of the victors from Ten. The first and only Volunteer, the one that the place of... He turns, and looks towards the man, who has since stood and let him go.

"Why?" He asks, but Ichor feels like he already knows the answer. He looks down and sees the burns, the bandages around his stomach. Oh no. Definitely not.

"I don't know," she answers truthfully. "But you're alive," her eyes narrow. "Stay that way."

Ichor swallows heavily, and it feels like his Adam's apple is trying to sandpaper his throat raw. "Why me? What for?"

"The Games," the man says, and Ichor can't remember his name. Something with an O. That's all he can remember. "We have to pick the tributes. Your ours. Or, one of ours.."

"No!"

The woman looks annoyed. "It's not like we all have much of a choice," she snaps. "We saved your life."

Ichor breathes in hard, and thinks of what happened. Dammit. He didn't care much for Dalton and Moss, but _this_...? Hopefully, they will be granted a quick death. Him, though. Ichor thinks of that... that Peacekeeper. What was his name? Was he even a Peacekeeper? He knew everything. Ichor breathed in hard. He should have killed him. There is communications equipment, he knows. He could warn them.

"I need to get back home."

The woman snorts.

Ichor glares. "What?"

"Not much left of that, I'm afraid."

Ichor closes his eyes and leans against the pillows. Of course. For the longest time, Ichor had been surrounded by people of less overall intelligence than he. That had made things easier _―_ _―_ here, he thought the same. Clearly, he was wrong.

"Then you better kill me now," he says. "Because as soon as I am able, I'll do it. I swear."

"You fetching won't," the woman glares.

Ichor turns his gaze back to her, furious. "You can't stop me. I'm not going into the games. I'm not some puppet the Captiol _―_ "

The woman stands. One of her legs is badly malformed, and Ichor can see, the hip on the left-hand side is crippled and dented, as if it had been bashed in. She turns to the others. "Leave us. Orford, please see the good doctor out. We'll phone if we need anything else."

Orford stands. He's a big man, heavy set and wide, but he looks... not happy, no, but kind. Ichor snorts. These people, so weak _―_ _―_ no wonder they needed Thirteen to kick them into gear.

Sitting beside him on the bed, the woman grabs his chin and drags his face painfully to the side to make him look at her. "You brought this down on us," she says, simply. "So I will say this. If you do not volunteer, I am fairly certain that those... Peacekeepers, weren't they? They will be back, and if you die anywhere other than that Arena, I'm sure they will make life very difficult for the rest of us."

Ichor growls. "I don't care."

"Some fighter, aren't you?" She sneers. "So you will just roll over and die then? Well, I learned a few tricks during my rodeo, boy _―_ if you won't do this, after dragging us into something we have nothing to do with, I will find a more suitable replacement." Her nails dig into his chin, hard. "But I won't kill you." She warns. "I'll drag you into the square, tell everyone around me who will listen, that this boy is too much of a coward to sacrifice himself and would rather let someone weaker, someone less prepared take his place, and then I'll cast you out onto the street and let them deal with you how they see fit."

"You're bluffing." Ichor grits his teeth, but she doesn't look away. Her eyes bore into his, and he knows, she isn't.

She leans forwards. "Do you know how many children I have seen die since my own victory?" She asks. "Sixty." Ichor thinks back. That's... that's an entire District 13 Platoon. Sixty lives. "That's sixty lives I couldn't bring back, so now, with this one chance, I will do my best ― as I do every year ― to make sure at least one of you makes it home. Don't end someone's life for certainty because you are a testy little bastard. You're not doing anyone else any favors." But then her eyes soften, and she sighs. "And if you win?"

"I can fight the Capitol in other ways." Ichor states. He breathes in, despite the pain gnawing in terrible throbs at his stomach, and he glares. "Fine. I Volunteer."

Then he sneers.

"I could probably get in a few licks before I snuff out, anyway."

 **⋄ 𝕎𝔼 𝕋ℍ𝔼 𝔹𝕃𝕆𝕆𝔻𝕐 𝕆ℕ𝔼𝕊 ⋄**

 **Author's note:**

I'M BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK~

And I bring with me? Pneumonia! No really, hospital sucks. Sorry for the lack of updates, but I should be back to snuff now, so yay!

Meet Ichor and, uh, "That Dictaterous Bastard No. 2," as Norseypoo is so fond of calling him. Ichor is one thing, sure, but "Dictaterous Bastard No. 2" is much much much muchmuchmuchmuchMUCH worse.

He makes Niner look like a five-year-old swinging a plastic sword around _―_ _―_ and suffice to say, "Dictaterous Bastard No. 2" will be around. You will see more of the ol' "Dictaterous Bastard No. 2" don't you worry. Actually, you should worry. You should be very worried when "Dictaterous Bastard No. 2" comes calling, because, that means that "Dictaterous Bastard No. 1" has something to say, as well. Welcome to the Hunger Games world! It's a terrible place.

I do hope I got Ichor down. He's a fascinating character, and so are the other two victors. Up next will be Xolanne Navarrete, another fascinating character who am... already three paragraphs into actually writing, so I better get back to that.

I'll see you all next time,  
Civillian, over and out.

 **Also** , this sneaky little comment:

For those who are actually wondering about Mr. "Dictaterous Bastard No. 2", I'll say this:

 _He gets it from his father_.


End file.
